With seafood consumption growing rapidly around the
world, and wild fish stocks under pressure,
aquaculture would seem like a potential boom industry.
But the business of farming fish in Australia has
proved notoriously fickle, as the experience of Pisces
Marine, a snapper farm in Port Stephens, illustrates.
The day
before the Deputy Premier, Andrew Refshauge, launched
the farm's operations in 2001, a wild storm hit the
cages and thousands of baby snapper escaped.
Then there
was the problem with the colour. The farmed fish
developed a darker red than wild ones, and it took
some effort to get customers to accept them.
But now
the company says it's on track to list on the
Newcastle stock exchange, and its managing director,
Andrew Bald, believes it is on a winner. According to
its prospectus material, 1500 tonnes of snapper was
consumed in NSW last year, but the commercial fishing
sector caught only 279 tonnes. The rest came from New
Zealand and Western Australia.
Bald says
farming snapper is not new - farms in the
Mediterranean produce 150,000 tonnes a year. He also
points out that NSW imports 85 per cent of its fish.
But he admits it has proved difficult to get backing
for his operation. "There's not a lot of support from
the institutions and banks," he says.
With capital raising
due to close in May, Bald faces the prospect of being
underfunded and unable to reach the scale necessary to
make the business really work.
In fish farming, even
consumer acceptance doesn't guarantee success. It's
difficult to find a menu in Sydney that doesn't serve
Atlantic salmon. Yet despite this, Tassal, one of the
three big producers, was placed in receivership last
year, owing $30 million.
The receivers put the
company's problems down to two unusually hot summers,
which contributed to undersized batches of fish, and a
huge 50 per cent expansion in product from Chile.
Despite the problems,
the State Government remains buoyant about NSW's
chances of capturing part of the market.
Australian aquaculture
was worth $750 million in 2000-01, averaging growth of
24 per cent a year over the previous seven years. The
lion's share of the market is in the farming of tuna
($263 million) and Atlantic salmon ($95.3 million).
NSW's share of the
aquaculture industry is relatively small. In 2000-01,
it was $41.6 million, with oysters accounting for
$31.6 million and prawns $4.9 million.
For Grahame Turk,
managing director of the Sydney Fish Market, the
sector is important, but it has proved difficult to
attract aquaculture products to the auction floor as
sellers are not guaranteed a set price. Fish farmers
have preferred to go directly to wholesalers.
"A lot of people going
into aquaculture are investors - they know exactly
what their costs are. It's very controlled," says
Turk.
But he feels things are
changing as farmers realise the price achieved at
auction tends to be higher on average than through
selling direct.
