With some help from famed local chef Alan Wong, state officials hope to help expand the market in Hawaii for a fledgling form of commercial farming where tilapia and produce are raised side by side.

The Hawaii Department of Agriculture has organized an aquaponic products conference to help interest supermarkets, restaurants and hotels in the vegetables, fruits and fish being produced by a small but growing number of local farmers.

"We hope to impress the buyers with the quality and taste of aquaponic products," Todd Low, manager of the department’s Aquaculture and Livestock Support Services branch, said in a statement announcing the conference.

Organizers plan to invite about 100 buyers from the supermarket, restaurant and hotel industries and introduce them to a dozen or so aquaponic farmers.

Dishes featuring tilapia and a variety of produce from the farmers are slated to be prepared by Wong at the event, which is scheduled for 2 to 6 p.m. March 22 at Kapiolani Community College.

The conference, which will include display booths, presentations and dinner, is part of a state effort to help facilitate growth in aquaponic farming.

"Hawaii’s aquaponics industry is relatively small at this time but has great potential," said Liz Xu, an economic development specialist with the Aquaculture and Livestock Support branch.

Aquaponics raises organic produce without soil or fertilizer by growing plants in cinder rock or other porous material and piping water from tanks filled with fish — usually tilapia — over the growing beds. The plants extract nutrients from fish excrement and cleanse the water before it is returned to the fish tanks.

This system uses less land, water and labor than conventional farming — big cost factors that make agriculture difficult in Hawaii.

Over the last roughly seven years, local farmers and entrepreneurs have learned how to symbiotically raise fish and produce on a commercial scale.

The variety of aquaponic produce has included lettuce, kale, bok choi, watercress, basil, cilantro, green onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, strawberries, blueberries, melons and more. Yet one major impediment to industry expansion is demand — particularly for tilapia.

Fred Lau, owner of Mari’s Gardens aquaponic farm in Mililani, is fortunate that he can sell all the fish he raises in Chinatown and to Asian restaurants. But mainstream restaurant and hotel markets are a hard sell.

"We’ve had a hard time breaking into that market," he said, adding that he hasn’t tried supermarkets.

At Foodland Super Market, the local chain with 32 stores, frozen tilapia from China are sold as whole fish and as fillets in 1- and 3-pound packages.

With rather limited sales outlets, aquaponic farmers have reported tilapia price undercutting, according to Low.

Another issue related to demand is a stigma some local consumers have about tilapia because they regard it as a fish living on trash in the Ala Wai Canal.

"There’s a generation in Hawaii that thinks tilapia is Ala Wai," Lau said.

At a workshop last year sponsored by the University of Hawaii’s College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, Windward Community College and the Hawaii Aquaculture and Aquaponics Association, the stigma was viewed by participants as the top factor in the way of expanding tilapia sales in Hawaii. Marketing strategy was second.

Lau said there have been efforts to refer to tilapia in Hawaii by some other name, such as Hawaiian sunfish, though he isn’t in favor of that. "It’s well accepted as a good eating fish," he said.

Conference organizers plan to collect information from buyers attending the event as to what needs they have, such as volume, pricing, packaging and food-safety requirements. That information will be summarized in a report to be shared with existing and potential new aquaponic farmers.

Funding for the conference is being provided by the state and matched with federal money through a marketing improvement program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Marketing Service.