February 6, 2008

Israel professor develops land-based fish farm

Israeli professor Yonathan Zohar has developed a land-based fish farming system with the ambition of stopping the world's decline in fisheries.

Zohar, director of the Centre of Marine Biotechnology at the University of Maryland, has created fish farms for urban environment. He emphasised that the urban fish pools, each about the size of a children's pool with higher walls and a roof, can be put into operation anywhere, and can be built close to fresh food markets, in city warehouses, and even homes.

A series of fish pools have been built in the basement of the centre in Baltimore. They are filled with freshwater from the tap, and have been adjusted with salts and buffers to imitate the marine environment.

Special microbes have been entrained to live in symbiosis with the fish in order to digest fish waste. Aerated by plastic plugs that house the microbes, the fish pools are bio-secure and contaminant free, said Zohar.

He added that part of the solid waste created by uneaten food or microbial byproducts is converted into methane and used as biofuel.

Zohar said seafood consumption is on the rise due to health benefits but there is the risk of over-harvesting and a change of practise is required.

According to the Food and Agricultural Organisation, about 75 percent of the world's commercially fished species are either depleted, overfished or fully fished.

Zohar now seeks an investor to build a pilot plant. He is currently growing Mediterranean gilthead seabream in his Baltimore fish pool, and plans to shift the focus to additional high value marine fish that includes European seabass and cobia.