Aquaculture in New Zealand - Prospects

Prospects

In 2006, the New Zealand aquaculture industry published The New Zealand Aquaculture Strategy, setting itself an annual sales target of one billion NZ dollars by 2025. The strategy sets out ten areas of activity needed to achieve this target. The New Zealand Aquaculture Council has introduced a levy on aquaculture producers so this strategy can be implemented.

In 2007, the New Zealand government responded to this industry initiative by releasing an aquaculture development strategy highlighting existing actions and proposing new initiatives. In addition, the government has offered additional funding around five key objectives, with the main focus on improving the implementation of the new 2004 regulations. At the end of 2008 there was a change in government, which announced that the aquaculture reforms will be overhauled, but reaffirmed the government commitment to the industry billion dollar target.

The New Zealand industry currently relies on low-value filter feeding shellfish (mussels and oysters) which are fast growing and relatively easy to culture. There is potential for the industry to diversify into higher value species such as pāua, kingfish and crayfish. These species need special food supplies and are more expensive to farm, but they command higher prices.

• The native blackfoot pāua, Haliotis iris, is a form of abalone. They are large sea snails which survive strong tidal surges by clinging to rocks using their large muscular foot. Wild pāua has been harvested since 1944, usually by skindivers,. Pāua aquaculture started in 1980, but has been slow moving beyond development. They are difficult to grow, and grow more slowly than salmon, mussels or oysters. Their larva and juveniles need to be grown separately. Most pāua farmers get juveniles from hatcheries, and feed them fresh kelp in land-based tanks. In Akaroa Harbour, one farmer grows pāua on plastic barrels tethered to buoys. In 2002, farmers produced five tonnes of pāua meat, worth $400,000.

• Another New Zealand pioneer pāua farmer cultivates blue pearls by placing some grit between the flesh of the pāua and its shell, where it acts as an irritant. The pāua responds by coating the grit with nacre (mother-of-pearl). This develops as a blue pearl.

• For some years there has been research on the best ways of growing the red seaweed, Gigartina atropurpurea, in New Zealand. Seaweed spores are grown on three metre strings at NIWA's Mahanga Bay aquaculture research facility,and are then transferred to a mussel farm in the Marlborough Sounds. If successful, a new seaweed growing industry could spread to the mussel farms in the Marlborough Sounds.

• Bluff oysters are harvested from the wild in Foveaux Strait. However, they breed more easily in Northland, and NIWA is examining their aquaculture possibilities.

• Shortfin and longfin eels have been trialled by NIWA. Established worldwide markets in cultured eels are worth over US$1 billion, and a decline in some stocks has opened up opportunities for New Zealand.

• The big-bellied seahorse is a native seahorse. Seahorses are valued aquarium fish. They are also used medicinally, particularly in traditional Chinese medicine. Wild seahorses have been over-harvested worldwide, opening markets to their aquaculture.

• A New Zealand sea sponge, Mycale hentscheli, which grows in Pelorus Sound, may hold the key to an anti-cancer drug. Scientists are working to see how peloruside, a substance produced by the sponges, might be used as a cancer-fighting drug. Victoria University and NIWA are working with Marlborough marine farmers to develop a method for growing the sponge on an existing mussel farm.

Other prospects which are being researched or trialled include