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herald Taylor Fish Farm had a long journey BY BETH VELLIQUETTE :The Herald-Sun bvelliauetteCc~heraldsun.com Jul i5, 2009 j~ BOOKMRRK_ 1i ~; _.J D CEDAR GROVE -- The story of Taylor i=ish Farm goes back a couple of decades when a young black man tried to get a loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to grow tobacco in northwestern Orange County. Valee Taylor, whose family was farming tobacco at the time and whose mother's family had grown tobacco for three generations, was turned down for the loan. "They told me I didn't have any farming experience at the time," Taylor said. "We were raising about 75 to 80 acres of tobacco Taylor was in his mid-20s then. He's 52 years ofd now and has started raising tifapia fish in a big fish barn on his family's property in Cedar Grove. it's been a long journey for Taylor, but his story is similar to that of many black farmers who were turned down for agricultural loans. That's why he joined the Black Farmers Lawsuit, a class action suit against the USDA. After proving his case, he finally won tine right to obtain a loan from the federal agency. Even then the struggle wasn't over. "It was a long, hard process," he said. "For every step forward, they put us two steps back." The idea of starting a fish farm came from Taylor's sister and business partner, Rene Stewart. She heard that Southern Slates was putting up fish barns for free in North Carolina. Stewart, a pharmacist, explored the idea but found out the barns were being put up only on the East Coast. Nevertheless, the idea of a fish farm stuck in her mind. Then when Taylor won the lawsuit and the right to obtain a foan, they decided to start an aquaculture business. He obtained a loan of about $900,000 to build the barn, the tanks and to purchase equipment. The total cost was $1,153,000, Taylor said. Working with experts from N.C. State University, they obtained plans for a fish farm, and Taylor took classes on how to operate it. Although he`s only got his first batch of fingerlings and work on the barn is still in progress, Taylor walks through the barn, explaining each technical aspect of the process as though he's been operating it for years. He's raising tifapia, a mild-tasting fish that is popular with the Asian population. The fish he raises wil( be shipped live in tanker trucks to New York City and beyond, even into Canada, to be served in Chinese restaurants, where customers like to pick out a live fish from a tank when they order. About four weeks ago, Taylor received his first order of 24,000 fingerlings from Florida. The tiny fish weigh about half of a gram. In the fish barn, they'll be divided and moved into bigger and bigger tanks until they weigh about a pound and a half, when theylI{ be ready for market. The fingerings went into a tank in a sterile room, where they're fed and monitored for six weeks to make sure they don't have any diseases. After Six weeks, they're divided into two groups and dropped into two big cement tanks. http:Ilheraldsurt.soathernheadlines.com/resources/print&~endly.cfm?StoryID=1182399&pageid=l0 7/15/2009