Hydroponics, Aquaponics And Integrated Agriculture / Cattle System School

I will produce vegetables and rise fish and cattle. I will also begin a school to teach hydroponics and aquaponic methods. I will sell the vegetables, the fish and the cattle in the Venezuelan market to the large supermarkets and grocery stores. I will charge a tuition fee to teach hydroponics and aquaponics. I need greenhouses, a small chemistry lab, basic chemical salts (fertilizer compounds) like calcium nitrate, diamonium phosphate, mono potassium phosphate and other compounds to produce the vegetables; small offices and warehouse for deposit, a small structure where to teach, a refrigerated warehouse for the fish and the vegetables, deep wells for good water, tanks for the fishes in the aquaponic method. I need trucks to transport the products. I need 35 to 40 workers. They must be medium to hi skilled workers. The raw material will be bought in Venezuela. They are available throughout the year. The suppliers are agricultural stores and chemical factories that exist in Venezuela.

My customers will buy my products because I can offer a steady supply of vegetables regardless the harvest season. I will reach my customers by visiting them personally in the case of supermarket and by newspaper advertisement in the case of the school students. There are but a few farmers that grow vegetable hydroponicaly. My main competitors are the farmers who farm using normal agricultural methods. They can not deliver a steady supply of vegetables thus their prices go up and down according to the season. I can give a steady price to the market. There are no hydroponics schools in Venezuela. The hydroponics vegetables are free of pesticides, clean and of better quality than normally grown vegetables. The price can be the same and in some cases lower than the market. Nevertheless the agricultural market is a full competition market where the price is settled by the market on most of the cases.

There are no schools in Venezuela that teaches hydroponics. This school will give people the opportunity to learn to grow their own food and, along with me, enter as farmers in the market to supply clean pesticide free vegetables and having so an opportunity to work on their own.

I have been studying hydroponics for 5 years and I hade a very small personal venture of my own in farming. As an entrepreneur I had a tire business in the past that was very successful for 14 years and I will use this experience to develop a new firm in farming. I succeeded selling tires since I was ranking 7th in truck tires sales within the Pirelli market in Venezuela. I close the business because Pirelli just changed its policy and did not sale tires to me any more. I learned that if I am to succeed I have to control most of the variables of the business instead of just selling the final product. I will never put again all my eggs on one nest trusting only one person and depending only on him.

There will be 45 direct and 200 indirect local employments with a direct and indirect income of US $ 200 per moth per employee in the short term. It is expected that in 5 to 10 years this employees as well as the students will become owners of their own farms and will work in a strategic association with my company, by that time their income should be approximately US $ 2,000.00 per month per person. I expect to have a strategic network of one thousand farmers in 10 years. This people will learn to produce their own food using hydroponics and aquaponic methods and thus they will be able to earn their own living and take care of their needs of house, food, health. I will also provide a steady supply of vegetables to the Venezuelan markets which will fulfill a small part of the Venezuelan needs for food.