Wellington
Years ago for a farm management report at Lincoln University, I wrote a tongue-in-cheek planaround the integration of goldfish in troughs on dairy farms (we'd spotted the use of suchtechnology to help keep the troughs clean).
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Koura (native freshwater crayfish). Picture by J Clayton, NIWA[/caption]
Well here's a huge expansion on this idea, one that's taken my fancy...this time utilising waterponds kept on hand by forestry companies in case they ever need to fight a fire.
( Check out the story here in last year's Otago Daily Times )
Ernslaw One started with an experiment in one of its Maniototo forest ponds, growing koura, orfreshwater crayfish, and it has been such a success, it is going to expand the programme around someof its 2000 ponds spread throughout Southland and Otago.
The original idea came about during a staff meeting not long after 2008's global financial crisiswhen log prices dropped and employees were asked what else might be used to generate income from theforestry land.
A Sustainable Farming Fund grant helped provide some in-depth scientific research on ponds andenabled development of a best-practice guide for koura faming. The guide of this draft will beavailable in February.
As you would, Ernslaw's learned a lot of the ins and outs of farming the native crayfish;including preferred habitat and companion planting.
First sales of the koura were made last year to Hilton Queenstown.
This is a really clever initiative, making use of a resource that would otherwise be (wasted?,you can't really call having water waiting on hand a waste surely) underutilised.
The gap between coming up with an idea and creating a whole new industry is also quite immense,so there's a lot of credit due to all involved.
Its a lovely wee fishy tale.