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People just couldn’t resist teasing Clément Roy about his decision to become a farmer.
“A lot of people were surprised and a lot of them said I was crazy,” says the 29-year-old Quebecker.
After all, it’s not often someone gives up a promising law career to go into farming, especially in a sector – land-based fish farming – that has been badly beaten up in the last few years.
“In 2002, there were almost 200 fish farms in Quebec, and now there are less than 100,” says Roy, who operates Ferme piscicole des Bobines in East Hereford, Que. “The production almost went down 50 percent.”
Actually, you might wonder why more didn’t call it quits.
Although aquaculture has been growing by leaps and bounds, most of that growth has gone to large multinationals using sea pens. Their scale and the fact they don’t have to heat buildings, filter water or dispose of fish poop means they can sell their fillets for considerably less.
Raising fish is also a risky business. It takes Roy around 30 months to raise trout to market size and one power outage or system failure could kill all of his fish in 60 minutes or less.
And finally, because they’re based on land, operations like Ferme piscicole des Bobines face strict environmental regulation. In sea-based systems, fish waste floats past the netting and is carried away by the current. Roy, who operates the farm with his parents, Normand Roy and Doris Brodeur, has to treat the waste and meet ever-toughening environmental standards dealing with phosphorus emissions.
That’s why in 2005, they abandoned the old system of raising trout in ponds and switched to concrete tanks in a 30,000 sq. foot building.
Normand Roy adapted cutting-edge fish-raising systems from Denmark (the world leader in land-based fish farming) and spent almost $3 million on infrastructure and state-of-the-art processing equipment.
They had taken a business in a brutally competitive high-cost, high-risk sector facing increasingly onerous environmental regulations and added a huge capital investment that has to be paid off.
Who in their right mind would choose that situation over a profession where a billing rate of $200 an hour is considered cheap?
But Clément Roy argues this situation is so ripe with opportunity, it’s hard to turn his back on it.
He says traditional fishing has maxed out at a time when demand for seafood is soaring (aquaculture’s share of global fish consumption has gone from nine percent in 1980 to about 50 percent today).
Sea-based aquaculture is also coming under increasing pressure – environmental concerns make expansion difficult and disease problems have hurt production.
Roy looks at his product – locally raised trout produced in an environmentally sustainable way that is antibiotic-free, low-fat, and rich in omega-3 – and can see demand only going one way.
“I’m very optimistic about the future,” he says. “We have a very good reputation (and) more and more people want to buy from local producers, so I think the future will be good.”
What sealed the deal for Roy was his parents’ decision to pour millions into a new facility.
“When I decided to come back to the family business, construction of the new facilities was already underway,” he says. “You could see it was going to be more efficient and more ecological. That was the kind of project that really turned me on.”
Roy is also passionate about farming. He loved law, especially environmental law, but did not like spending his days in the office or defending companies with poor environmental practices.
The re-invention of Ferme piscicole des Bobines is paying off. Sales have risen 10 percent annually since Clément’s return and he expects that trend to continue. His wife, Véronique, has taken a lead role in marketing, increasing the customer base and promoting the farm’s line of value-added products such as smoked trout and trout pâté.
The company also has a steady business stocking ponds and streams with young trout.
At the same time that profits have gone up, the number of jokes about Roy’s career choice has gone down.
“People see that I am happy and that the business is doing well,” he says. “So they don’t make those comments so much anymore.”
Ultimately, it’s about perception. Some see only the risks: Why give up a sure thing for an uncertain one? Why invest millions in a sector that others are abandoning?
Clément Roy saw the risks, but was able to look past them and see the opportunity also.
The website of Ferme piscicole des Bobines can be found at www.produitsdelaferme.com by clicking on the Producers tab.
Glenn Cheater is editor of the Canadian Farm Manager, the newsletter of the Canadian Farm Business Management Council.
