A Fish Tale: Aquaculture Set to Boom

As the population grows, so will fish farming. Despite two decades of hardship, war and a loss of markets, Matko Jasprica has kept his Croatian fish farm alive and now hopes to start exporting sea bass and sea bream to the European Union. Researchers say fish farming, known as aquaculture, is set to become the world's main source of seafood over the next 20 years. With a small team, Jasprica runs the Plankton farm situated 1.5 miles out to sea from the Peljesac peninsula in the southern Adriatic. The farm is hidden from sight and screened from the northerly wind by a tiny island. The fish, grown in dozens of square and round cages, can be detected only by bubbles on the sea surface. The farm produces around 120 tons. "Our plan was to adjust our standards and start exports to the European Union, as demand on the local market is small," said Jasprica. "We must be ready when Croatia joins the EU -- we can't beat big producers but we can be competitive with new technologies."

Experts say demand for seafood is set to rise as the world population grows and wild fish stocks decline. The EU, which produces 1.2 million tonnes of seafood and consumes 55 lb per person per year on average, has to import 65 percent of its needs.

"We expect the world population to increase to 9 billion in years to come and there are some expectations that we need to double food production by 2030," said Torgeir Edvardsen of the European Aquaculture Technology and Innovation Platform. "A lot of this production cannot come from terrestrial sources. We'll have to farm the sea much more than we've done up until now," Edvardsen said. Fish farms produced 51.7 million tons of fish worldwide in 2006 with an estimated value of $78.8 billion, according to figures from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

Some scientists say farmed fish production has reached 70 million tons since then, coming close to the 80 million tons of wild fish caught in open seas -- a maximum that cannot be exceeded due to restrictive fishing quotas to protect species.

"There is no question -- aquaculture is the way of the future," said Marshall Gilles, head of the Canadian government's agriculture and fishery division, adding that farmed fish will probably account for 60 percent of available world stocks by 2030. Gilles said his government fully supported the industry, which can provide permanent employment for the coastal population, most of which depend on seasonal jobs in tourism.

Fish farming output, which has grown consistently by 10 percent a year for the past 20 years, is expected to reach nearly 120 million tonnes by 2020, according to Branko Glamuzina, who teaches aquaculture at the University of Dubrovnik. "Aquaculture is the fastest growing agro-business," he said. "It actually represents the only serious business that can provide enough seafood for the ever growing population."

Despite a long seafood tradition, Croatia lags in the technology and development needed to compete in the EU fish and mussels market with other Mediterranean countries such as Italy, Greece and Spain, Glamuzina said.

"Aquaculture definitely has to move further and further from the sheltered coastal waters because of society's urge to protect tourism, protected sites and species," Edvardsen said.

Offshore farming poses new technological challenges and environmental risks, and industries and researchers are exploring methods to address them. "The more you move from shore, you get more waves, more current, more energy," said Arne Fredheim of the Norway-based CREATE research center for aquaculture. "You have to have all kinds of equipment, you have long distances to travel, and you have to have permits."

Some environmentalists warn about the negative impact of fish farms' waste on nutrients at the seabed. They are also concerned about interbreeding of escaped fish species with wild fish and the use of large quantities of wild fish to feed farmed fish.

Dusko Zmijanjac, a manager at the Plankton fish farm, believes that farmed fish is safer for human consumption. "Farmed fish is healthier than wild fish which gets everywhere, included into polluted areas," he said. "Tests have never revealed the presence of heavy metals in our fish."

Source: Reuters, 6/22/10