Aquaculture- The Art of Farming Fish

by Ruth Seligman

Aquaculture - the rearing of aquatic organisms under artificial conditions is one of the fastest growing sectors in agriculture, exhibiting an exceptional worldwide annual growth rate of about 10%. On the other hand, general world fishing catch has reached a peak of around 90 million metric tons per annum that has not changed for over a decade. The population growth coupled with the growing demand for fish (considered as healthier food) has led to the impressive growth of aquaculture. The artificial rearing of fish has been practiced for thousands of years in the Far East, but this was done under extensive production conditions. Under intensive production conditions the yields can routinely exceed 150 metric tons per hectare of pond area and with the aid of special water oxygenation devices even five times that figure. These phenomenal production yields are only possible when all the proper conditions for intensive fish rearing are met. These include (but are not limited to): specially designed ponds or tanks equipped with filters capable of removing the waste products in an efficient manner and means of increasing oxygen supply for the fish; availability of healthy, selected small juvenile fish for stocking; provision of nutritious food suitable for the different stages of growth; and ability to monitor the water quality and health of the fish during the production cycle. The advantages of intensive fish production are numerous, but in order to achieve them the farmer has to rely heavily on available infrastructure that is often not available in either the country or the specific site selected for fish culture.

Rosenthal is no stranger to this type of operation. She was also involved in organizing a similar course in 1997 and again in 1999. "And each time," she says, "we are not only presenting the Israeli experience but, equally important, providing a forum for the participants in which they share their own experiences with each other. The fact that this was a very heterogeneous group of high-level professionals, many with master's degrees and a few with doctorates, who came from many different areas of the subject, created a kind of mix that led to a dynamic interchange and, in some cases, to fruitful contact for future collaboration."

The course managed - in three concentrated weeks of lectures, tours and special projects - to cover an extraordinary range of topics related to intensive aquaculture farming - R & D (research and development), nutrition, reproduction, genetics, fish health management and the diagnosis and treatment of major diseases, production planning, water quality and post-harvest processing of fish. In addition there were professional tours throughout all of Israel - from the Upper Galilee in the north where the group saw Intensive Trout and Eel Culture at Kibbutz Dan, down to Eilat in the far south. On their way, they visited kibbutzim (collective settlements) and moshavim (cooperative settlements) raising ornamental fish, Tilapia and sea bass, model farms, R & D stations and a marine fish cultivation company farming in giant floating cages in the Red Sea. In the Jordan Valley they visited a food processing plant, a food mill that concentrates on nutrition, a Tilapia hatchery and the National Health Laboratory.

Shalom's reporter met with some of the participants who shared their reactions and impressions and, in many cases, validated Rosenthal's claim that the learning experience flowed in two directions - from Israel to the participants and from participant to participant.

Whenu Olusegun Olufemi, of Nigeria, found the course valuable in many ways, especially in showing him how to increase productivity by moving farmers into intensive aquaculture farming. Olufemi, who has a first degree in fish science and a master's degree in ecology and pollution, is a lecturer at Lagos State University in its Fisheries Department. "Nigeria," he said, "is a very large country with a population of 120 million. We have no dearth of water. Nevertheless, the quantity of fish we get from our marine resources, the sea and from our freshwater lagoons, lakes and ponds, is far below what we could and should be getting due to the fact that one cannot control the wilderness. We must learn to breed fish in a controlled environment."

"Here," he stressed, "I acquired some very practical information on what may be done to move us in that direction." He ticks off some of the information he will be taking back with him to Nigeria - the importance of good management, ways to improve the quantity and quality of water by making reproductive genetic improvements, ways to deal with disease and the importance of encouraging farmers to use proper feeding techniques. "You in Israel, with so little water, have done so much, while we in Nigeria, with all our water, have yet to develop our potential for raising production and profit levels."

"Our situation in Uganda," reported David Tilia, "bears some resemblance to that of Nigeria." Tilia, who has a B.Sc. degree in aquaculture, is a senior fish officer in his government's Fisheries Department where he is involved in various planning, supervisory and training projects. "In Uganda, too," he noted, "we have no intensive fish farms." Nevertheless, he too is aware that they are an important way of making aquaculture more profitable. "However," he said, "we have certain problems we are now facing before we can move in this direction. First of all, we are now in the process of reorganizing the structure of our government, dividing responsibilities among the central government, districts and subcounties. There is no close linkage between those levels and this hampers the flow of knowledge." Equally problematic is the fact that farmers lack very basic, fundamental knowledge, "due to our not having enough well-trained extension workers." Tilia was very impressed by Israel's Extension Service, "whose workers are a great help in disseminating information." He also referred to another problem in Uganda, the way farmers, as a rule, do not value technical knowledge "as do the people in Israel." Faced with these problems, Tilia is aware of the need to move slowly, as is now being done, beginning with providing farmers with basic, elementary knowledge. "We are making strenuous efforts to encourage our farmers to feed their fish properly." He noted poetically that fish, just as people, need good, nutritious food and, similarly, just as people, also need oxygen and a clean, hygienic environment. "Fish do not like dirt any more than people do," he said simply.

In spite of the constraints and limitations under which he works, Tilia is optimistic about the possibility of raising production and profit levels in his country. "And we are moving ahead," he said, "in some interesting directions." He referred, for example, to a genetic problem he is tackling with regard to the raising of the Tilapia fish, "which, when raised in ponds reproduces prolifically. We need to figure out a way to concentrate on raising males which grow faster and bigger." Tilia found helpful the information he received from Norida Samson of the Philippines, where they are working on the same problem. She explained how research on sex determination in her country is being used to control reproduction by using synthetic hormones to convert the gender females into functional males.

Samson, whose first and second degrees are both in aquaculture, found the course "a breath of fresh air, a fresh look at intensive aquaculture farming which enhanced my technical capabilities." Samson is a science research specialist for the Council for Aquatic and Mariculture Research and Development, monitoring, planning, coordinating and evaluating nation-wide projects related to fish, fisheries and aquatic resources. "Here I learned," she said, "how to achieve the maximum utilization of limited water resources. Although we do have a lot of water in the Philippines, we have problems related to the environment with waste products coming from agriculture and industry - and this is very detrimental to the raising of fish. Due to this and other problems, we have now begun to develop the kind of intensive aquaculture farming we saw here, but we are just in the initial stages. The knowledge I gained here will be very helpful to me as we move into this area of activity."

Samson also pointed out how much she had learned regarding the feeding of fish, "and the importance of improving the food we give our fish. In the Philippines," she stated, "we use only chicken manure and inorganic fertilizers. We would like to start using more organic food and plant additives, i.e., grass as in China."

For Samson, the course had another advantage. She hopes to set up a private company of her own that will include a training center and a private farm. "And the information I received here," she concluded, "was extremely valuable to me in planning this project."

Participants had different agendas and different reasons for wanting to attend the course but, at the same time, there was a thread of commonality running through their motivations - the desire to see intensive aquaculture farming in action, to see how it works in practical, concrete terms. As Dr. Zsigmond Jeney, of Hungary, said, "From the literature and research reports published by Israeli scientists, I have for a long time been aware of what has been achieved here, but I wanted to see first-hand what I had read and heard about." Jeney, whose doctorate is in aquaculture, is the Scientific Advisor of his country's Research Institute for Irrigation, Fish and Aquaculture. He has been at the Institute for 25 years where his main interests are diseases of fish and genetics.

Jeney's description and review of the live gene bank his Institute maintains was as fascinating as it was informative. "It is," he reported, "the largest live gene bank in the world of carp, containing 32 different varieties of carp, plus three strains of the common carp. Using the live sperm from this bank, we can raise production levels most impressively, for it enables us to maintain biological diversity. Fish, for example, that were almost extinct in their native habitat can now be preserved."

Jeney's interest in fish genetics is shared by Dr. Gideon Hulata of Israel's Volcani Institute, Department of Aquaculture, so much so that while he was in Israel he met and discussed with Dr. Hulata the details of a joint project that both expect to be implemented soon. "We are both," explained Dr. Jeney, "concerned about a viral disease, Koi Herpes virus (KHV). Initially, we at our Institute began our work on this disease with ornamental fish but soon moved to carp. For Israel, diseased carp are a serious problem since they cause a great deal of damage and result in heavy losses. Since our carp are very sensitive to this disease, we have had to work out a way to control it. One solution: to cross the strains with some of the varieties in our live gene bank. We now hope to bring to Israel live sperm from some of the carp strains. Israeli scientists will then cross them to see if they are resilient to the disease. We will be interested in screening our carp with the techniques developed in Israel for, then, we will know whether or not our fish have the disease. We are now preparing the ground for this joint project, one that will be beneficial to both our countries. Since this project is very much in Israel's interest, it will be providing the initial funding, while we will be providing the genetic information regarding each species."

Asked for his impression of the course, Jeney replied that he found the lectures "very helpful and informative and the review of recent achievements very useful." He was impressed by the up-to-date work Israel has done in the field of intensive aquaculture farming. "And this is of great interest to us for today in Hungary we are facing a shortage of surface water, that is water from rivers. Approximately 90% of our water comes via other countries, from rivers such as the Danube. We are interested in guaranteeing the quality and quantity of our water year-round. As a result, we know that we must diversify our aquaculture - and intensive aquaculture farming is one way of doing this. Thus," he repeated, "this course gave me a wonderful opportunity to see what Israel is doing in the field that is now of great importance to us."

For Mustafa Tolon, of Turkey, a research assistant and lecturer in agricultural management at the Ege University's Faculty of Fisheries, where he is now completing the requirements for his doctoral degree, the course was a "chance to meet representatives from so many different countries." As a result, he is now investigating the possibility of collaborating with people from Nepal and Papua-New Guinea.

Tolon's wife Banu was in Israel last year for a course on beekeeping. She was so impressed by the high level of that course that she encouraged her husband to apply to this course. "Turkey," he said, "is also another country which does not suffer from a lack of water, but - as I have learned here - we could utilize this resource more advantageously. We have," he stressed, "a major problem with our farmers who are very traditional and conservative and not open to innovation. They are reluctant to listen to or hear from our experts. And it will take time to change these attitudes, but it can be done."

Although practically all of the participants were from the public sector, two - Nino Carlos Leyva from Honduras and Reynaldo O. Caliboso from the Philippines - were from the private sector. Leyva, whose B.Sc. degree in animal husbandry is from Kansas State College, Missouri (USA), has been working for 14 years for Aquacorporation of Honduras, "a private farm actually designed by an Israeli firm," where he is its production manager. "At the moment," he said, "we are working in two different directions simultaneously - one, raising Australian sea bass and the other, raising ornamental fish." Evaluating the course, he listed some of the very practical techniques he had learned, "some quite new to me." These included various techniques for harvesting fish, new methods for sorting different varieties of fish and a way of creating a uniform screening system. "In this area of screening, we learned," he said, "how important and necessary it is to build screens of different sizes so that only small fish can get through, leaving the big fish free for processing."

Caliboso is president of a large marketing firm in the Philippines, representing an Israeli company Haogen Plast, which manufactures green storage systems and intensive aquaculture systems. For him, the course was very helpful in giving him "more confidence in dealing with my clients, for now I have a firmer grasp of what we are selling."

Caliboso is aware that the private sector tends to be underrepresented at international courses of development and cooperation and suggested that this situation be corrected. "We in the private sector often have a more business-oriented approach and we could, conceivably, bring a new dimension and a different perspective to the course," he pointed out.