About Meeker's Aquaculture

Meeker's Aquaculture is owned and operated by Mike and Sharon Meeker. Unique to Ontario cage farms, the Meeker family own and make their home on the property directly adjacent to the cages on Lake Wolsey.

In 1986, following two years of intensive site evaluations, Meeker's Aquaculture put 3,000 rainbow trout in a homemade net and cage.

This was the first commercial cage culture farm on Manitoulin Island.  The results were encouraging and production has since grown to between 3- and 4,000 tonnes annually.

Meeker's employs between five and six full-time employees plus additional part-time workers when the workload is heaviest.

Meeker's Magic Mix       

Aquaculture

Also onsite is a large composting operation that began as a research project.  Processing waste from the Little Current trout processing facility combined with fish mortalities and sawdust waste from local mills produces a very marketable compost in a very short time.

Mike Meeker thought there had to be a better destination than the local landfill for the by-products of the fish and forestry industries. He experimented by churning fish offal and sawdust together in a modified cement truck on his farm. The result is a successful compost product that has a high nutrient value for lawns, flower beds and field crops.

Today, approximately 1.5 million pounds of fish by-product from other fish producers in Northern Ontario are used in compost production.  Up to 40 tonnes of compost are produced each week.

The product, sold in 40L bags, has attracted retail partners like Canadian Tire and Home Hardware and has drawn praise for its quality from organic growers.

Mike Meeker was a 2008 Premiers Award for Agri-Food Innovation Excellence winner for the composting project.

Aquaculture is the farming of fish, shellfish and aquatic plants to produce food for human consumption and the stocking of our lakes and rivers.  Aquaculture originated in China over three thousand years ago.  In Canada, there is folklore evidence that basic aquaculture was practised by early aboriginals.

The world is eating more fish every day.  The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (UNFAO) predicts that by 2030, global consumption of fish will have grown by 70% relative to 2009.

The reality of increased reliance on aquaculture to meet growing demand is supported by a recent study in the 'Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS),' which states that one-half of all seafood consumed is now cultured.