March 5, 2007

Chinese farm organisation tries its hands at offshore aquaculture

A Chinese fish farm organization is trying its hands on offshore aquaculture thanks to new engineering and undersea cultivation skills.

As fish farmed in this way are grown in near-natural environments, their survival rate is higher and they taste similar to widl-caught fish.

The high-tech cages, developed by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,  were installed in 2005 by Jeju Fisheries Research Institute and a local fish farm association.

The cages may look simple but a great deal of science is involved in keeping them at a constant depth, said Yang Jun-bong, a representative of the fish farm association.

The cages also had to be specially constructed to withstand high tides and bad weather, and the nets had to be made of a special fibre to withstand typhoons common to this region.