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Southern Oregon Bioscience Industry Consortium (SOBIC)

What's Up with us...

June 19, 2009

Oregon Tilapia is now a reality - "Gone Fishing"

Ron Barnes has been raising tropical fish at his Klamath Falls, OR facility for nearly twenty years. But his dream has always been tilapia. Now, after years of back and forth with ODFW reviews to prove tilapia not an invasive species threat, Ron has his dream.

In this news report from KDRV/KDKF News Watch 12, Reporter Emily Wood documents Ron Barnes fame as the first farmer, aqua farmer that is, to cultivate tilapia in Oregon. Now we just need to get Ron to share his recipe book...

Click to view at KDRV, News Watch 12: The Tilapia Experiment:

see primary report from February 8, 2008 below

June 9, 2009

– A visit to Straw Jet

I entered the unassuming office of Straw Jet, Inc. Talent, OR where I was met with a welcoming smile and hand shake by Mark Weir, Straw Jet’s Chief Operations Officer. We proceeded into the production area where the machinery that produces Straw Jet's unique sustainable building cables are created. Having an operations background myself, I was immediately struck by how this simple craftsman’ shop was well organized for talented creation and manufacturing. Most of the staff are wood craftsmen but I could see what was once machinery prototyped in wood was becoming a new reality in metal. I could tell that the shop was a proud place to work.

Straw Jet’ patented process creates sturdy building materials out of what was once agricultural waste using any number of locally occurring natural fibers. Fiber sources range from rice, wheat, or other grains and straw to palm fronds, tobacco and even bamboo. The process is completely natural utilizing no unnatural compounds and is totally biodegradable and renewable.

A fiber cable is a continuous "rope" or "braid" of agricultural waste fiber bundled into a two inch diameter cable. The cable is held tightly together by a wrapping of very high strength synthetic filaments. The technology is extremely scalable, from a single braid stationary machine onto which a fiber material is transported on up to large scale combine harvesting equipment producing wide ribbons of parallel cables.

The construction materials are virtually fireproof, have excellent thermal insulation properties, and thanks to the high modulus of elasticity achieved using natural fiber cable for structural strength, are exceptionally earthquake tolerant. The entire manufacturing process is environmentally responsible and highly sustainable. The structural strength of the material is derived from a resource that unlike trees is annually renewable.

Straw Jets business plan includes applications for both developed and developing nations. The building materials produced by the Straw Jet process are an engineering solution to a global problem namely deforestation and utilization of what are traditionally agricultural waste.

Straw Jet: An engineering solution to a global problem.

StrawJet, Inc.

5765 Colver Rd.

Talent, OR 97540

Office (541) 535-5822

Straw Jet: http://www.strawjet.com/

Filed by Jim Mau, June 16, 2009

February 8, 2008

Report filed by Jim Mau, SOBIC

On February 7, 2008, I traveled to Klamath Falls, OR to give a presentation to the Klamath County Biofuels Taskforce regarding the potential of developing an algae photobioreactor farm to produce algal feedstocks for biofuels production. While there, I traveled south to Liskey Farms, about fifteen miles south of Klamath Falls, to visit with three bioscience companies who call Liskey Farms home.

I visited the processing site of Green Fuels of Oregon operated by Rich Walsh, who grows his own canola in the Klamath Basin for producing biodiesel. Rick is finding it difficult to acquire sufficient amounts of feedstocks to produce the required amounts of biodiesel. He believes that the ability of algae to produce up to 30 times that of conventional biofuel feedstocks such as canola, soy, corn, etc., may be the answer to to the problem and was very supportive.

I also met with Lou at BioTactics. Skip Maltby, Owner of BioTactics was on the road. BioTactics, recently relocated to Klamath Falls from California. They culture predatory mites for the biological control of pest mites. Biotactics utilizes the geothermal heat sources available at Liskey Farms to maintain the proper environment to culture their Benemites™ in greenhouses there.

I managed too to catch up with Ron Barnes. Ron is a farmer, an aqua farmer. Presently, Ron raises tropical fish from Lake Malawi in East Africa's Great Rift Valley. He has been wanting to raise tilapia for nearly twenty years but has been prohibited from doing so by ODFW for concerns of the Endangered Species Act and the fish escaping into natural waters. Ron states that the science contradicts the opinion of ODFW noting that tilapia can not survive over wintering in Oregon. What is interesting is that this is the same ODFW reasoning that allows Ron to raise his tropical fish.

Most tilapia are now raised in the southern United States or internationally and shipped to the Northwest. Ron says his operation, if allowed to raise tilapia, could provide for local economic development and numerous employment opportunities in a Klamath County which as of December 2007 boasts an 8.0 unemployment rate. This story is to be continued...

Update on Ron: Spring 2009.

Ron was recently granted the opportunity to build out his ponds to cultivate tilapia.

For further information, please contact Jim Mau, SOBIC at (email removed) or call at .

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Updated: June 19, 2009