Ben Beversluis

Commercial fish operations are mere minnows in the sea of Michigan's massive agriculture industry.

But the business of aquaculture is poised to grow like the proverbial fish story.

Aquaculture is the fastest-growing food industry worldwide, proponents say, and Michigan, surrounded by one-fifth of the Earth's fresh water, is joining the boom.

In Cadillac, Dan Vogler's Harrietta Hills Trout Farm is the largest private aquaculture facility in the state, producing about 125,000 pounds of trout per year.

Most of that is for eating -- some goes to out-of-state processors and a lot to folks who operate ``fee fishing'' ponds where people catch their fresh fish.

Over in Okemos, Russ Allen is selling shrimp at his Seafood Systems Inc. -- shrimp he grows right there. Those shrimp, a few hundred pounds a week, are the test-phase product of 15 years of research. He said he envisions acres of indoor shrimp farms, perhaps in West Michigan, producing up to a million pounds of shrimp per acre.

But most aquaculture in the state continues to be oriented toward pond and lake stocking: bass, bluegill, trout and perch.

``Traditionally, the industry in Michigan has been pretty much a fish-stocking industry,'' Allen said.

Of fish grown for food, trout is the primary product. Sales of trout 12 inches or larger -- typically those to be eaten, like Vogler's -- totaled 296,000 pounds in 2008, 63,000 pounds more than the previous year. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated the 2008 value at $864,000. The department also said total trout sales were just more than $1 million when adding in the smaller fish used for stocking or sold to growers.

Michigan's overall cash receipts for agricultural products in 2007 was $5.7 billion, including about $1.5 billion in milk alone. Blueberries tallied at about $165 million, and tart cherries brought in about $51 million.

But the fish market could be larger --much larger, said Allen, president of the Michigan Aquaculture Association, and Vogler, who is on the National Trout Farmers Board and the American Farm Bureau Federation aquaculture committee.

The scale of sales

Total sales in Michigan of trout 12 inches or longer:

2003 -- $564,000

2004 -- $601,000

2005 -- $634,000

2006 -- $620,000

2007 -- $675,000

2008 -- $864,000