My Groupers, Norwegian Salmon and Icelandic Tilapia

When I read the report in the FISHupdate  dated January 2011 that Norwegian Seafood Export for the year 2010 increased from 44.8 billion kroner (RM23.2 billion) in 2009 to the new highest record in last 7 years of 53.8 billion kroners(RM27.8 billion) in 2010, I presumed that their aquaculture contribution could be just around 50% of it. But, I was wrong! Further details shown  that aquaculture contribution was 62% from their seafood export. Taking 62% of Norwegian seafood export in from aquaculture production, it is 1.674 million tons of production and 33.41 billion kroners (RM17.24 billion). Their seafood export were 2.7 million tons in 2010, an increase of 93 thousand tons from previous year. The same report indicated that their export value of salmon and trout increased by 29%, with France and Russia was their largest markets while China (including Hong Kong) was the fastest growing market in 2010. All those figures really stimulate my mind for our future development in fishing and aquacultre industry.

Atlantic Salmon. Picture: Wikipedia



Another report also in FISHupdate published on November3, 2010 said that Iceland plan to produce 10,000 tons of aquaculture production within next few years. There are currently around 45 registered fish farms in Iceland, with salmon rearing and mussel farms taking on a new importance. Fish farmers are also experimenting with high value species such as turbot and cod. The very same report also said that Iceland will start their TILAPIA farming in Flúdir. They think that tilapia breeding offer extensive opportunities and working with their grain farmers on producing fodder for the fish.

Tilapia nilotica harvested from the pond in Nile Delta area. Photo: Mahmud Ismail

I always want to compare our production with those giants in aquaculture or fisheries industry like Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Peru and Chile although sometime, I also take Taiwan to be my yardstick for measuring our achievement. There are reasons why I choose to look at those countries and not our neighbouring countries like Thailand, Indonesia or China even though these countries are main seafood producers too. One of the factor that I think we are similar to those fisheries giants countries is minimum supply of manpower into fishing and aquaculture industries.

Lack of manpower in those countries have became their driving forces to modernise their industry accordingly, so they decide to use modern equipments and technology to ensure their productivity will remain competitive with other countries. In our case, we decide to import immigrant labors to fulfill our shortage, so we assume we are as competitive as our neighbouring countries in term of our productiveness. For so long, that was the picture of our fishing and aquaculture industries. In the case of main seafood producing countries as mentioned above, the technology will remain with them forever and will be improved according to time and needs.

In our case, once the labor immigrants return to their countries, we will still remain as we were before and in the need to look for cheap labourers again. Perhaps, we should re-strategize our whole fishing industry all over again. The new 21st century that we are living now will not ensure that we get the cheap labours from neighbouring countries anymore. These neighbouring countries themselves now moving forward for modernization of their fishing industry, perhaps using our ex-man powers.

Live fish market in Hong Kong. Photo: Mahmud Ismail.

Our fisheries statistics will soon be published, I presumed, based on previous years experiences. I strongly believe that our export value too will show some improvement, be in value and quantity, both from capture or aquaculture productions . I hope the export of live groupers  too will show the same trend, taking notes of intensive private sector investments in the fisheries industry reported lately in all states. While waiting for the official figures to be published, I presume Sabah, Johor, Selangor, Perak and Pulau Pinang will remain the main exporting grouper fishes in Malaysia while Terengganu and Kelantan will be following soon into the list.

Malaysia: Grouper Production 2005-2009.

21st century should make us well informed fish farmers especially on latest technological research and developments in fishing and aquaculture industries. I wish to see our farmers to get such information from various sources available now. For serious readings in aquaculture development and new technology, I strongly recommend  Global Aquaculture Advocate and Aquaculture Asia to get into latest information on who and what in this industry.

I also hope we will equip ourselves with the marketing information for our targeted markets of your products. Should Asian countries is your prospect market, the The 2009 Import and Export Market for Live Fish in Asia report should be your base information. In my case, I single out my attention into a niche China markets, where the information about it easily available in The 2009 Import and Export Market for Live Fish in China. While most of grouper farmers in this country are eyeing for the same market direction as me, I think another market perhaps can be explore, i.e. South Korea (The 2009 Import and Export Market for Live Fish in South Korea) and Japan.

We shall wait for our statistics to come out soon to see either our grouper production increase in the quantity and value as we hope too. If our production was not as high as in the case of Norwegian seafood export, we might want to look into our own targets, and keep asking what needed to be done to make ourselves at par with those giants in fishing and aquaculture ondustries. Maybe we want to look into our tilapia production too, so that we can be make a comparision between our production with Icelandic Tilapia. Unfortunately, our latest published statistic on the Ministry Of Agriculture website was only up to June 2009 while Department of Fisheries website's was still on 2008 figures.