-
Fish farming - Source: ONE News -
Related
Federated Farmers wants the prohibition on commercial farming of trout to be lifted.
The organisation also wants a review of both the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) and the Ministry of Fisheries (MFish), to determine which is best placed to support aquaculture.
President Don Nicolson says Fed Farmers believes there is considerable scope for land based and freshwater aquaculture, including the farming of whitebait, fresh water mussels, eels as well as freshwater crayfish.
Even paua can be farmed in land-based operations as is done in Australia, he says.
"The one 'no go' area seems to be trout, which is odd, given trout is a member of the salmonidae family and there's no qualms about farming salmon," says Nicolson.
"Fly fishing tourism in Scotland seems completely unaffected by Loch Etive sea run trout sold in British supermarkets. That you can easily buy a salmon at a New World in Timaru, doesn't stop people buying licenses in the hope of catching a wild one out of the Rangitata."
Nicolson says the annual European Union harvest of farmed trout is 203,000 tonnes - just under half of NZ's lamb exports and he questions why New Zealand isn't farming trout as in the case of salmon.
"Strategically, aquaculture has major economic potential for New Zealand that needs to be harnessed in order to grow our economy. Twenty percent of the diet for some 2.6 billion people is made up of fish protein and over the next four decades, the world's human population will expand by some 3.7 billion people. That's a big reason to give our farmers the legislative means to realise the opportunity," Nicolson says.
He says Fed Farmers is uneasy about some of the Technical Advisory Group's recommendations, including an Aquaculture Agency within MFish that would be part funded by a new levy with the formation of a stand alone Aquaculture Fund. Nicolson says this has the potential to become a "mini-MAF".
