CLIMATE CHANGE AND AQUACULTURE ISSUE

Video discussion project

In this video, we had discussed about the impact of climate change towards aquaculture and methods to overcome those challenges.

THE AQUACULTURE FUTURE & RESEARCH

AQUAPONICS – INTEGRATING AQUACULTURE AND HYDROPONICS

Aquaponics is a symbiotic integration of two mature food production disciplines: (i) aquaculture, the practice of fish farming; and (ii) hydroponics, the cultivation of plants in water without soil.

Aquaponics combines the two within a closed recirculating system. A standard recirculating aquaculture system filters and removes the organic matter (“waste”) that builds up in the water, so keeping the water clean for the fish. However, an aquaponic system filters the nutrient‑rich effluent through an inert substrate containing plants. Here, bacteria metabolize the fish waste, and plants assimilate the resulting nutrients, with the purified water then returning to the fish tanks. The result is value-added products such as fish and vegetables as well as lower nutrient pollution into watersheds. 

Aquaponics has the potential for higher yields of produce and protein with less labour, less land, fewer chemicals and a fraction of the water usage. Being a strictly controlled system, it combines a high level of biosecurity with a low risk of disease and external contamination, without the need for fertilizers and pesticides. Moreover, it is a potentially useful tool for overcoming some of the challenges of traditional agriculture in the face of freshwater shortages, climate change and soil degradation. Aquaponics works well in places where the soil is poor and water is scarce, for example, in urban areas, arid climates and low-lying islands.

However, commercial aquaponics is not appropriate in all locations, and many start-ups have failed. Before investing in large-scale systems, operators need to consider all factors carefully, especially the availability and affordability of inputs (i.e. fish feed, building and plumbing supplies), the cost and reliability of electricity, and access to a significant market willing to pay premium prices for locally produced, pesticide-free vegetables. Aquaponics combines the risks of both aquaculture and hydroponics, and thus expert assessment and consultation are essential.

To support aquaponic development, FAO has produced a technical manual on small-scale aquaponic food production.1 At the Thirty-first Session of the FAO Committee on Fisheries (June 2014), four Members (the Cook Islands, Indonesia, Kenya and Mexico) cited aquaponics as an opportunity warranting greater attention. Moreover, a related side event presented yumina, a form of aquaponics used across Indonesia. As a follow-up, Indonesia, with support from FAO and the South–South Cooperation team, held a regional technical workshop on aquaponics in late 2015 to train trainers from countries around the world. Separately, FAO also convened a training workshop on aquaponics for countries in the Near East and North Africa region.

In the future, the agriculture sector will need to produce more with less. Following the principles of efficient resource use, synergistic benefits can be realized by integrating food production systems and reducing inputs, pollution and waste, while increasing efficiency, earnings and sustainability. Thus, aquaponics has the potential to support economic development and enhance food security and nutrition through efficient resource use, and become an additional means of addressing the global challenge of food supply.

AQUACULTURE MAPPING AND MONITORING

Inventories and monitoring of aquaculture facilities provide decision-makers with important baseline data on production, area boundaries, and environmental impacts. Mapping facilitates such work and improves the effectiveness of interventions for disaster assessment and emergency preparedness.

The mapping of aquaculture facilities can be performed accurately, regularly (i.e. minutes, days, months or years) and at selected scales by remote sensing. Remote sensing – using satellites, aircraft, drones or fixed sensors – enables observations of vast and often remote or inaccessible areas at a fraction of the cost of traditional surveys. It provides a large range of observation data that complement and extend data acquired from in situ observations to support aquaculture management.

Challenges for aquaculture mapping include:

(i)                  limited awareness of its benefits for decision-makers and technical personnel;

(ii)                limited knowledge on how to conduct inventories and analysis;

(iii)              limited number of innovative mapping applications;

(iv)              limited human resources, infrastructure and financing.

FAO assists countries in recording the location and type of aquaculture facilities so they can improve their aquaculture zoning, site selection and area management. These facilities and their evolution can be assessed against locations of sensitive ecosystems and habitats to highlight potential impacts. They can also be linked to the licensing process to identify unregistered or illegal facilities. FAO’s National Aquaculture Sector Overview map collection provides a spatial inventory of aquaculture with attributes including species, culture systems and production.1 Based on Google Earth/Maps technology, its aim is to develop ways to assist developing countries and so encourage them to conduct their own inventories, at minimal cost, as part of their strategic planning for sustainable aquaculture development. Some have already begun creating their own farm-level inventories by creating atlases and/or Web mapping applications.

Google Earth is a good starting point for spatial inventories of aquaculture as it makes high-resolution data (e.g. satellite images or historical aerial photographs) freely available to the general public, without requiring any remote-sensing expertise. Despite some limitations (e.g. obsolete/undated imagery or other layers, insufficient resolution for some aquaculture applications, and incomplete coverage owing to cloud cover), such mapping applications should be the first stop in a spatial data search where base maps and specialized layers are lacking. However, ground-based data gathering remains important for validation, and here global positioning systems (GPS) are essential for digitally recording the location of aquaculture facilities and assessing the accuracy of remote-sensing sources. More advanced approaches based on image analysis require the use of geographic information systems (GIS) or remote-sensing software and access to satellite images in their original format. Digital data (such as from remote sensing) pertaining to any aspect of aquaculture can be assembled in a GIS. These systems perform a wide range of spatial and statistical analyses, providing informed answers to aquaculturists, local managers, government officials and other groups promoting sustainable aquaculture development.

Advances in remote-sensing and mapping technologies and spatial analyses will enable improved and more informed opportunities in aquaculture, especially as these technologies and analyses become increasingly powerful, cheaper and more accessible to all. In this respect and thanks to partnerships mobilized through projects around the world, FAO continues to promote the adaptation and tailoring of innovative methodologies and capacities to facilitate concurrent access to remote sensing, field data-collection devices (e.g. GPS, smartphones and tablets), GIS and spatial analysis by aquaculture stakeholders.

AQUACULTURE AND CLIMATE CHANGE

The Issue: Climate change will have a range of impacts on aquaculture.

Possible solutions

There are practical adaptation measures (“no regret” actions) that can effectively address climate variability and trends at the farm, local and national levels and even at a global scale. With these measures, fish farmers and other local stakeholders can play a proactive role in addressing both long-term changes/trends and sudden changes (e.g. extreme weather events):

Ø  aquaculture zoning to minimize risks (for new aquaculture), and relocation to less exposed areas (existing farms); „„

Ø  appropriate fish health management; „„

Ø  increasing efficiency of water use, water recycling, aquaponics, etc.; „„

Ø  increasing feeding efficiency to reduce pressure and reliance on feed resources; „„

Ø  developing better-adapted seed stock (e.g. tolerance to lower pH, broader salinity resistance, faster-growing strains and species, and other attributes); „„

Ø  ensuring high-quality, reliable hatchery production to facilitate outgrow in more stressful conditions, and to facilitate rehabilitation of production after disasters; „„

Ø  improvement of monitoring and early warning systems; „„

Ø  strengthening farming systems, including better holding structures (e.g. sturdier cages, depth-adjustable cages [for fluctuating water levels], deeper ponds) and management practices; „„

Ø  Improving harvesting methods and value addition.

AQUACULTURE PRODUCTION

WORLD AQUACULTURE PRODUCTION

ASIAN REGION AQUACULTURE PRODUCTION

ASEAN REGION AQUACULTURE PRODUCTION

MALAYSIA AQUACULTURE PRODUCTION

In 1990, production from aquaculture was 52 302 tonnes. By 1994, production had doubled to 114 114 tonnes. In 2003, aquaculture production was at 194 139 tonnes at a value of USD 308 million - about 20 percent of the total value of the fisheries production in Malaysia. Brackish water species accounted for more than 70 percent of the total aquaculture production in terms of value and quantity. Of these, blood cockles recorded the highest production, followed by marine shrimp and other freshwater species, such as tilapia, carps and catfish, as well as marine fish. Cockles account for almost 50 percent of the total brackish water aquaculture production, and about 37 percent of the annual aquaculture production. However, marine shrimp accounted for the highest value of production, with about 65 percent of the total value of brackish water aquaculture production, and 52 percent of the total value of aquaculture production in 2003. Marine and brackish water aquaculture production recorded an increase of more than 20 percent in comparison to production in 2002. Freshwater aquaculture production, however, only recorded an increase of about 7 percent in comparison with production in 2002.

The graph below shows total aquaculture production in Malaysia according to FAO statistics:

Chart 

In 2007 aquaculture production reached 178 239 tonnes (208 239 tonnes including aquatic plants). The sector has long been identified as having the most potential for further development.

Among the various culture systems, the traditional culture of cockle on coastal mudflats on the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia has dominated, with cockle landings amounting to more than half the total aquaculture production (excluding seaweeds) until 1999. But, its share in total aquaculture production declined from 42 percent in 2000 to 28 percent in 2007. This was caused by a decrease in production in conjunction with a growth in production of most other species. In 2007, cockle production was 49,620 tonnes, followed by aquatic plants (30,000 tonnes), tilapia (26,409 tonnes), banana prawn (23,738 tonnes), Clarias catfish (21,892 tonnes) and giant tiger prawn (11,435 tonnes).

Mud flat culture (of cockles) is the most common production method, followed by freshwater pond culture, brackishwater pond culture, long-line culture of seaweed, and several other minor culture systems including marine cage culture of fish, raft culture of mussel and oyster, mining pool culture of freshwater fishes, freshwater cage culture, and tank culture of freshwater fishes - in that order. Shrimp culture in brackishwater pond contributes most in terms of value. The average unit price for marine shrimps is high, inter alia, because a significant portion is exported. Lately, the longline culture of seaweed, practised only in Sabah and negligible during several decades, has been gaining rapidly in importance.

HISTORY OF AQUACULTURE

A SHORT HISTORY OF AQUACULTURE

Origins
The earliest form of aquaculture practiced consisted of trapping wild aquatic animals in lagoons, ponds or small shallow lakes, so that they would be available at all times. This method dates back to the Neolithic age, when man started to act on natural resources, namely around 4000 B.C. in Europe. This minimalist practice no longer exists in Europe because all aquaculture involves at least one technical interaction with the environment or the animal.

In the second stage in its evolution aquaculture no longer relied solely on nature: aquatic environments favourable to the development of fish, molluscs and/or crustaceans were developed. Carp rearing in China is the most sophisticated form of this type of aquaculture, evidence of which dates back to the fifth century B.C. in the famous Treatise written by Fan-Li. In South America, the Aztec cultivated agricultural islands known as chinampas in a system where plants were raised on stationary (and sometime movable) islands in lake shallows and waste materials dredged from the chinampa canals and surrounding cities were used to manually irrigate the plants. This system is believed to be the earliest ancestor of modern aquaponics.

As for seaweed, the first written record of human consumption appeared in Japan more than 1500 years ago. However the intervention of men on seaweed production seems to have started in 1670 AD. At this time, Japanese fishermen were ordered fresh fish every day for the Shogun and realised that the bamboo fences used to farm fish were covered by seaweed.  They then realize that they could make the seaweed grow quicker by moving the bamboo fence in the estuary where it would receive some nutrient input from the land.

TIMELINE OF WORLD AQUACULTURE

3500 BC

Cultivation of carp begins in China using freshwater ponds and rice paddies

2500 BC

Hieroglyphics indicate tilapia were being farmed in Egypt

2000 BC

Oyster farming begins in Japan

746 AD

First reference to clam culture appears in Chinese literature

1400

Marine finfish aquaculture begins in Indonesia when young milkfish are trapped in coastal

ponds at high tide.

1600s

Seaweed farming begins in Japan

1733

Fish farming in its modern form begins when a German farmer successfully gathers trout eggs, fertilizes

them, and then grows the hatched fish to maturity

Early 1800s

Oyster farming is further developed by the French by placing strings of tiles in water for oyster larvae to

settle on and then transplanting the larvae to protected beds.

Oyster farming expands to the Atlantic coast of the U.S

1853

An Ohio trout farm becomes the first in the U.S. to artificially fertilize its fish eggs

1880s

Aquaculturists experiment with lobster and winter flounder aquaculture in New England

1909

The first commercial trout farm in the U.S. established in Idaho

1910

State and federal hatcheries in the U.S. develop channel catfish farming techniques

  

1919

Washington’s oyster farming industry begins when Pacific oysters from Japan are placed in

coastal waters

1930s

President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Farm Pond Program encourages the growth of the U.S. aquaculture

industry by providing federal subsidies for building and stocking fishponds on farms.

Researchers in Japan make major advances in shrimp farming techniques

1934

Raft culture of scallop developed in Japan

1940s

Tilapia farming introduced to the Caribbean, Latin America and the U.S

1950s

Netpen aquaculture is introduced in Japan for the commercial culture of yellowtail

1951

Intensive seaweed farming begins in China

1960s

Commercial shrimp farming develops in Japan and soon begins in Ecuador and the U.S

Late 1960s

Sea bass production begins in the Mediterranean.

First commercial salmon farms are established in Norway and Scotland

1970s

U.S. catfish farm acreage grows from 400 acres in 1960 to 40,000 in 1970.

After nearly collapsing due to disease and a saturated world salmon market, Norway grows to become the world’s top salmon-farming nation.

Salmon farming expands to the U.S. and Canada.

Abalone hatcheries develop in California.

Mussel aquaculture develops on both coasts of the U.S

1976

New Zealand’s first commercial salmon farm is established.

World aquaculture production is estimated to be 6.1 million metric tons (mt)

 1980s

The National Aquaculture Act of 1980 is passed in the US to provide for the development of the

aquaculture industry.

Sturgeon farming begins in California.

The commercial farming of hard clams, or quahogs, begins in New England

1981

Manila clam farming begins in Washington and California

1984

World aquaculture production reaches 10 million mt, contributing 12 percent of the world’s

aquatic food supply

1985

Salmon farming introduced in Australia

Late 1980s

Shrimp farming industries in Asia and South America undergo rapid expansion

Early 1990s

World aquaculture production in 1990 is 13 million mt.

Research begins in the Mediterranean on the feasibility of off-shore aquaculture.

U.S. striped bass and tilapia aquaculture industries develop.

The Irish sea trout fishery collapses because of sea lice infestations believed to be caused

by salmon farms.

Shrimp farming industries in many parts of the world collapse due to outbreaks of disease.

Alaska bans commercial netpen fish farms to protect its wild fisheries

1991

Tuna farming, in which juvenile wild fish are captured and then fattened in cages, is established in

Australia

1992

Snapper aquaculture begins in Australia

1994

Between 1984-1994, world aquaculture production grows on average 11 percent per year.

Maine begins commercial seaweed aquaculture

1995

The British Columbia government places a moratorium on new salmon farm tenures in

order to conduct an environmental review of the industry.

World aquaculture production is 24 million mt

1996

Canadian researchers patent transgenic salmon

1997

Canada announces plans to fund research in cod farming

1998

Sea bream culture grows from 110 mt in 1985 to 41,900 mt in 1998

1999

World aquaculture production grows 154% over the 1990s. Production tops

33 million mt and contributes nearly one-third of the aquatic food supply.

Production of farmed salmon exceeds the amount of salmon caught in the wild

2000

Farmed salmon production tops one million mt.

Research begins on new aquaculture species such as flounder, sablefish and halibut.

American aquaculturists induce spawning in cobia, marking the first step towards

commercial cobia farming

2001

Since 1989, close to three million Atlantic salmon have been reported escaped from

farms in British Columbia, Washington, Maine, and Scotland.

Infectious salmon anemia (ISA) spreads to Maine forcing salmon farmers to slaughter

over 1 million fish

2002

Traces of illegal antibiotics are detected in farmed shrimp imported from Asia.

Officials in British Columbia announce plans to lift the moratorium on new salmon farms.

Australia’s bluefin tuna farmers produced 9,245 mt for a value of AU $260.5 million, a three-fold

increase in five years

2003

Salmon farmers in Maine are found in violation of the Clean Water Act and ordered to fallow their sites for two to three years and cease the use of European strains of fish at their farms.

Commercially farmed cod available in the US for the first time.

Offshore fish farming projects, funded by NOAA, exist in Hawaii, New Hampshire, Puerto Rico, and the Gulf of Mexico.