January 31, 2007

Environmental concerns may hold back aquaculture development

Environmental and social concerns are two direct obstacles standing in the path of the development of the aquaculture industry today, according to Aquaculture - Global Developments, a report by Frost and Sullivan, a global consulting firm.

The report gives an overview of emerging trends in the aquaculture landscape that involves key drivers, challenges, restraints, and analysis of adoption trends.

The growth of the aquaculture industry is vital for meeting the world's growing appetite for fish and other seafood, says Frost & Sullivan Senior Research Analyst Kasturi Nadkarny.

The exponential rate at which the world population is expanding is contributing toward making culture fisheries more important than ever as a reliable source of food and resources, Nadkarny added.

If the aquaculture industry manages to overcome the environmental concerns and the social and economical challenges plaguing it, it could be vital in narrowing the widening gap between the demand and supply of seafood. As wild fish populations will be incapable of meeting demand, consumers would have to rely more on the aquaculture industry to boost production. Nadkarny said.

However, activities like shrimp farming often results in several tonnes of organic waste within a single shrimp-farming crop. Most of these wastes are difficult to be broken down into simpler forms and cannot be put to use by the phytoplankton through photosynthesis.

These compounds also deplete the dissolved oxygen content in the shrimp ponds. They also generate toxic metabolites such as nitrite, ammonia, methane and hydrogen sulphide which makes the soil acidic, damages the gills and tails of the fish, affects their metabolism and causes blue shrimp syndrome.

These factors result in high mortality rates in aquaculture shrimp farms. Compounding the issue, shrimp farms are located in close proximity of each other, making it easy for diseases to spread from one farm to another, Nadkarny said.

The report also added that although most nations have could enlarge their aquaculture production significantly, fish farmers lack sufficient technical information to improve practices to achieve higher quality and yield.