May 3, 2013
Brazil to give aquaculture sector a boost
Last week, Brazil's Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture (MPA) Marcelo Crivella announced infrastructure projects aimed at strengthening Brazil's aquaculture industry.
At the ceremony held in Brasilia, with representatives and leaders of state governments, public inter-municipal consortia and mayors in attendance, three programs in the areas of shrimp and fish farming, aquaculture, and irrigation in Acre were presented to serve as models for other Brazilian states.
According to Crivelli, all projects are to be funded by the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture. He stated that the production chain of each project should be fully integrated, from the production of fry, to the production of fish feed in a feed mill, to the processing unit. This is similar to the model in Acre.
The Acre project began in 2011 when the state government created the Program for Strengthening of Fish Culture and implanted Acre Industrial Complex Fish Culture.
The Programme for the Strengthening of Aquaculture in Acre operates seamlessly across the production chain by building tanks to increase production, holding training activities and improving technical skills of the producers along with the deployment of an entire industrial structure.
Tanks for increased production are built on the properties of small fish farmers, scattered throughout the state, and investment has been made on an industrial complex, located at kilometre 29, BR-364, towards White River/Old Port.
The complex spans 60 acres (24.28 hectares) of land, and will include one feed mill, an advanced nursery and a refrigerator for fish processing. These investments will boost the primary production of the state, which currently has an annual growth rate of about 15%.
For the construction of the complex, the government has set up a new company, called Amazon Fish S/A.
The members of the company include private investors, the state government - through the Agency's Business Acre (ANAC), and the Central Cooperative Fish Farmers Acre (Acrepeixe) - which represents 2,500 families of small fish farmers and holds 25% of the company's shares.
