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Highlands Today

A shining moment

Bill Rogers, Highlands Today

Carlos Martinez (standing in the water) of the University of Florida Tropical Aquaculture Laboratory talks with Rafael Sarmiento while stocking wild shiners in a pond in Venus. Sarmiento is planning to raise shiners commercially.

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By BILL ROGERS

Highlands Today

Published: December 20, 2009

VENUS - Venus is an isolated community known for its flooding during the summer, independent people and - most recently - for turning back the Eagle National Training Center's attempt to become a neighbor.

If Rafael Sarmiento is successful with his venture, Venus could become known for something else - a huge bait fish farm that might be the only one of its kind in the country.

It was with great interest that Sarmiento, who is the CEO of Green Choice Farms in Miami, and others gathered Wednesday on his property located on John Pearce Grade about three miles off of Graham Dairy Road to watch the initial stocking of the wild shiners.

"We are a management company, and now we plan to go green," said Sarmiento, noting that it is also planning to get into bio-fuels crops.

Carlos Martinez of the University of Florida Tropical Aquaculture Laboratory and Dave Hoy, who operates a fish farm in Bartow, put the shiners of varying sizes into four ponds that are about six to eight feet deep.

Martinez said they should have an idea in two weeks as to how the shiners are doing in their new environment. He added that someone will be checking on the fish regularly and noted that Hoy will be returning with a special feed that he has concocted from different feeds that works well.

"They have never had a shiner in these ponds before," Martinez said. "They may belly up all of them."

Sarmiento explained that it has taken his company a while to find the right thing to grow. They contacted the United States Department of Agriculture and then were put in touch with someone at the University of Florida who connected them with Martinez.

They initially wanted to raise tilapia, but Sarmiento said the production cost is too high.

Sarmiento said he thinks millions of shiners eventually could be produced in the 96 ponds on his land.

Most of the domestic shiners in this country are produced at Anderson Farms in Arkansas, according to Sarmiento. Shiners are grown there in concrete ponds.

"It's like day and night - completely different," said Sarmiento, referring to raising wild shiners.

"You want to catch a big-mouth bass of seven pounds or more, you should catch it with a wild shiner," he said.

Hoy believes that no one else in the United States is doing what Sarmiento is planning to do with wild shiners that he said are more temperamental but a better bait.

Martinez said he tried to talk Sarmiento out of doing the project, saying that "food aquaculture is not that easy. It's not profitable unless you have a specialty market."

Martinez doesn't know if it will be successful, but he believes the conditions are favorable.

"This is a fantastic area for shiners," Martinez said. "It is probably one of the only areas, water-quality wise, the parameters of this type of water, that will naturally produce certain ornamental fish and that's another option.

"Now those ornamental fish come from tropical places, and they are not going to take the winter, so that's why we started with the native fish," he added.

It has been a significant investment of more than $100,000 at this point, according to Sarmiento.

"They dug the ponds up, they cleaned them, they put water lines, they're getting electric," Martinez said. "Let's hope that these take, start producing like crazy and then we'll keep producing these."

John Alleyne, the commercial horticulture agent for the Highlands County Extension Office, said the operation is big in terms of the potential to bring in jobs and boost agri-tourism.

Alleyne said Sarmiento's main goal is to create jobs for the area. Sarmiento has already hired some people.

Bill Rogers may be reached at 863-386-5825 or wrogers@highlandstoday.com

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