Aquaculture for food security, economic development

Jayantha CHANDRASOMA

Aquaculture is the husbandry or farming of aquatic plants and animals and its practices range from the propagation of aquatic organisms under complete human control to the manipulation of at least one stage of an aquatic organisms life before harvest for the purpose of increasing production for profit or social benefit. Aquaculture has a long history.

First book on fish culture was written by Fan Lee, in 475 B.C. This book covered topics such as pond construction and spawning of fish. The term ‘Aqua husbandry’ was first described in this book. There had been evidence to indicate that Oysters were cultured by Romans in 100 B.C. and Milk fish culture practised in Indonesia in 1400 A.D.

Importance

Fish farming has been practised more at subsistence level for centuries and grown into a industry during last four decades. The recent interest and development in aquaculture basically due to growing demand for fish protein; limitations in production from capture fisheries; high production rate per unit area of aquaculture operations; less dependency on fuel; Economic viability of aquaculture enterprises; Ability to supply quality sea food, especially fresh and live etc.

Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Development Minister Dr Rajitha Senaratne inspecting some boats which are to be distributed among Northern fishermen.

Freshwater prawn farming

Fisheries and aquaculture are widely considered to make important contributions to meeting the United Nations Millennium Development Goals of poverty, elimination, food security and nutrition. Most governments has recognized Aquaculture and Inland Fisheries as priority area for development considering important role it can play in enhancing food security, nutrition, employment, livelihoods and for earning foreign exchange and economic development. Some other roles of aquaculture are culture of fish for baits

(eg. milk fish), ornamental fish culture, culture of natural food for fish, improvement of natural stocks, control of organic pollution and culture of fish for recreation activities such as sports fishing.

Status of global aquaculture

Capture fisheries and aquaculture supplied the world with about 142 million tonnes of fish in 2008. Of this, 115 million tonnes was used as human food, providing an estimated apparent per capita food supply of about 17 kg. aquaculture accounted for 46 percent of food fish supply.

Fish accounted for 15.7 percent of the global population’s intake of animal protein. China is the largest fish producing country, with a production of 47.5 million metric tones in 2008; 32.7 and 14.8 million tonnes from aquaculture and capture fisheries respectively.

Aquaculture production

While the fish supply from marine capture fisheries appears to have reached a plateau, the demand for fish and fish products is rising.

This increasing demand is being met by aquaculture with an average growth rate of eight percent over the past two decades. Aquaculture is the fastest growing food producing sector in the world and remains a growing, vibrant and important production sector for high protein food.

The combined result of development in aquaculture worldwide and the expansion in global population is that the average per capita supply of food fish from aquaculture for human consumption has increased by 10 times, from 0.7 kg. in 1970 to 7.8 kg. in 2008, at an average rate of 6.6 percent per year.

Aquaculture produced 15.8 million tonnes of aquatic plants (mainly seaweeds) in 2008, with a total estimated value of US $ 7.4 billion. Ninety four percent of world total production of aquatic plants come from aquaculture sea weeds are used for direct human consumption or for extraction of carrageen-an and other substances, which are important for food processing industries.

Asia’s dominance

Asia is the cradle of global aquaculture and it is not only the region with the highest contribution to global aquaculture (over 90 percent) but also the region with the highest average food fish consumption rate, estimated at 29kg person per year. Eight Asian countries are among the top ten aquaculture producing countries in the world. These countries are China, India, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Bangladesh, Philippines and Japan.

The structure of the sector in much of the region is characterized by the pre-dominance of production from small-scale farms. Growing Aquaculture Sector provides significant opportunities for employment, directly and indirectly in production or value chain.

Major species groups used in aquaculture

Aquaculture is being carried out using freshwater, brackish water as well as seawater. Aquaculture operations in freshwater contribute 60 percent to world aquaculture production by quantity. The production of freshwater fish is dominated by carps. Other freshwater fish community used in aquaculture are Tilapia species and Pangas Catfish. Aquaculture in marine waters produce many high valued crustaceans and finfish, shrimp and prawns, oysters, mussels, clams and scallops. Brackish water production represented 7.7 percent of world aquaculture production and consisted of high valued shrimps and fin fishes.

Challenge

Given the population growth, in order to maintain the current global per capita fish consumption of 17 kg/per person, it is estimated that 138 million tones of food fish will be required by 2025. An increase of 22 million tones from 2008 level. Provided that the current supply of fish from capture fisheries is maintained, this increase of 22 million tonnes should be obtained from Aquaculture and Inland fisheries. It is important to ensure this is achieved in a sustainable and responsible manner and particularly as ecosystems come under increasing pressure that resources are wisely utilized to ensure that people continue to benefit from the consumption of fish for generations to come.

Sri Lanka - resources

Sri Lanka is rich in water resources required for development of inland fisheries and aquaculture. There are 103 perennial rivers in Sri Lanka. Most of which, drain from the central islands into the Western, Southern and Eastern coasts. In addition, there are more than 12,000 reservoirs with an extent of about 300,000 ha.

The extent of reservoirs in Sri Lanka consists of the ancient reservoirs that have been restored and rehabilitated and new reservoirs.

These reservoirs have been constructed primarily for irrigation and for generation of hydro-electricity. Sri Lanka has the highest density of reservoirs (around 4.0 ha for every km of the island) in the world. In addition, there are around 170,000 ha. of Lagoons and estuaries. Sri Lanka has a coastline of 1770 km.

Considering the vast resources available, its potential for development and role of inland fisheries and aquaculture sector in providing food security, nutrition, livelihoods to the rural communities and for strengthening rural economy, government has accorded a high priority for the development of this sub-sector under ‘Mahinda Chinthana’ of President Mahinda Rajapaksa. Realizing the importance of this sub-sector the President established the National Aquaculture Development Authority of Sri Lanka (NAQDA) in 1998 when he was the Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Development Minister.

NAQDA

NAQDA is the leading agency for the development of Inland fisheries and Aquaculture in Sri Lanka, falling under the purview of the Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Development Ministry. It was established under National Aquaculture Development Authority of Sri Lanka, Act No.53 of 1998.

Its functions include develop aquatic resources and the aquaculture including: creation of employment opportunities through the development of freshwater and coastal aquaculture; farming of high valued species for export; promote the optimum utilization of aquatic resources through environmental friendly aquaculture; promote private sector investments in aquaculture; manage, conserve and develop resources, conserve bio-diversity etc.

NAQDA has three main divisions for Freshwater Aquaculture, Coastal Aquaculture and Aquaculture Extension. NAQDA operate three large freshwater food fish seed production centres (Udawalawe, Dambulla and Inginiyagala), two centres for Ornamental fish (Rambodagalla, Ginigathena), and two Freshwater prawn hatcheries (Pambala, Kandamodara). In addition NAQDA operater a marine shrimp hatchery at Batticaloa with a private sector partner. A training centre with all facilities has been established at Kalawewa. Two shrimp farm monitoring units at Chilaw and Batticaloa to support and regulate shrimp farming. NAQDA’s aquaculture extension service consist of network of District Aquaculture Extension officers established in almost all districts for implementation of development activities and for the regulation of the sub sector.

Present status fisheries industry contributes two percent to the GDP of the country. More than 70 percent of the animal protein requirement of Sri Lankans are obtained through consumption of fish. Total fish production in Sri Lanka in 2010 was 3,84,670 tonnes, of which 52,410 tonnes (13.6 percent) came from inland fisheries and aquaculture. Fish production from inland fisheries and aquaculture sub-sector showed an average annual growth rate of twelve percent during last five years.

Inland Fisheries and Aquaculture play an important role in providing good quality fish at affordable prices to rural communities. It was interesting to note that per capita fish consumption in districts such as Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa is high (13.5 kg./annum), when compared to national average of 11.6 kg. 85 percent of the fish consumed in these districts are inland fish.

There are about 75,000 people engaged in activities related to inland fisheries/aquaculture directly and indirectly. Inland fisheries and aquaculture plays an important role in strengthening rural economy. For example inland fisheries in Mahavilachchiya tank produces around 700 tones of fish annually. Estimated value of this fish is around Rs 90 million and this is a major contribution to the economy of the area.

Development activities

Sri Lanka’s inland fisheries and aquaculture development programmes consist of, enhance fish production in large reservoirs through stocking of fish fingerlings and management of fisheries; Introduction of culture-based fisheries in medium and minor perennial reservoirs and seasonal reservoirs; Increase fish seed production with the participation of communities and the private sector; Rehabilitation of shrimp farming in Puttalam district and extend shrimp farming to North and East; Development of inland fisheries and aquaculture in North and East; Promote and support coastal aquaculture including sea cucumber, sea bass, milkfish, bi-valve and seaweed culture; promote freshwater fish and freshwater prawn farming in ponds and cages; promote and support ornamental fish and ornamental plant industry to enhance exports.

It is anticipated that fish production from inland fisheries and aquaculture will reach 9,500 metric tonnes by 2013, through the implementation of above development progammes.

(The writer is a Senior Aquaculture Scientist with wide experience in Inland fisheries Aquaculture sub-sector. At present he is the National Aquaculture Development Authority of Sri Lanka Chairman)