January 11, 2010

Call to restart trout farming in New Zealand

New Zealand's Federated Farmers wants the prohibition on commercial farming of trout to be lifted.

The organisation also wants a review of both the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) and the Ministry of Fisheries (MFish), to determine which is best placed to support aquaculture.

President Don Nicolson says Fed Farmers believes there is considerable scope for land-based and freshwater aquaculture, including the farming of whitebait, fresh water mussels, eels as well as freshwater crayfish.

Nicolson says the annual EU harvest of farmed trout is 203,000 tonnes and questions why New Zealand is not farming trout as in the case of salmon.

He believes that strategically, aquaculture has major economic potential for New Zealand that needs to be harnessed in order to grow the economy.

He says 20% of the diet for some 2.6 billion people is made up of fish protein and over the next four decades, the world's human population will expand by some 3.7 billion people.

He says the federation is uneasy about some of the Technical Advisory Group's recommendations, including an Aquaculture Agency within MFish that would be part funded by a new levy with the formation of a stand alone Aquaculture Fund.