Aquaculture

With over 124 ha of ponds and a capacity of about 170 tonnes/year, as well as a state-of-the-art processing facility, Piscicola S.R.L. in Cehu Silvaniei may become one of the important medium-sized fish farming enterprise in Romania, provided it receives an injection of capital in the near future.

Over the past 30 years, Spain has developed its aquaculture sector through technological investments and the promotion of marine and inland aquaculture products. Promotion has been done at government, association, and at producer level. Different tools have been used, such as fairs, exhibitions, implementation of standards, designation of origin, as well as marketing and information campaigns.

All aquacultural facilities need tanks, basins, or other containers to hold the water and the fish. They are available in various shapes and sizes and can be made from different materials. Tank design and construction depends heavily on their intended application. Every model has certain advantages and disadvantages, and no universal solution meets all aquacultural needs.

A lot of aquaculture experts argue that farms should be moved away from the coast and further out into the open sea. Open ocean aquaculture in offshore locations would solve a number of problems and user conflicts that are connected with production in shallow water. Unfortunately, however offshore aquaculture is also quite a lot more expensive; it is more complicated and entails more risks than inshore aquaculture, and farming technologies are still not technically mature.

Although the spectrum of species produced in aquaculture is getting broader and broader only few of them succeed in asserting themselves lastingly on the markets. The ten most produced fish species account for nearly three quarters of the total volume of fish from aquaculture. New aquaculture species stand a good chance of market success in Asia, in particular, where consumers are generally open towards seafood. In contrast, consumers in western countries are often initially more cautious. This is the second part of a two-part article on potential aquaculture species. The first appeared in Eurofish Magazine EM3 2013.

Throughout the course of history Russia has been a leading maritime and fishing nation due to its territorial and geographic characteristics and its place and role in global and regional international relations. Although the end of the 20th and the start of the 21st century was a period of crisis for the Russian fishery industry, it has more recently demonstrated stable positive dynamics and growing volumes of catches and fish production.

Although OECD and FAO forecasts predict that in 2021 the growth rate of aquaculture will be only half its present level it will even then still be growing. This does not only apply to production volume but also to the number of produced species. Some species will probably remain niche products but others might succeed in conquering international markets. Which candidates are particularly promising and what affects their market chances?

Although work on the development of an artificial starter feed for fish and shrimp larvae has made considerable progress live feed continues to be indispensable in a lot of areas of aquaculture. Marine fish larvae, in particular, often have very high dietary requirements and during the first days of their lives have to be fed on Artemia larvae, rotifers or the even smaller ciliates. Producing this live feed is by no means easy.

Although fishmeal production in the two main producer countries Peru and Chile was 40% higher in 2011 than in the previous year this increase brought little relief to the situation on the aquafeed market. Fishmeal prices fell slightly but are still at a high level. And they will probably remain more or less the same, particularly since already in spring 2012 there were signs that raw materials availability for the fishmeal industry would probably be lower again this year.

Salmon lice are probably one of the biggest threats to salmon farming at the moment. The available control methods are often not sufficient to effectively reduce lice infestation. In Norway radical measures are sometimes even considered, such as slaughtering whole salmon stocks or concerted action to leave farms unstocked. But might it be possible to solve the salmon louse problem biologically using “cleaner fish”?