Essay On Aquaculture

All forms of rearing of aquatic animals and plants in fresh, brackish and marine environments include aquaculture (Pillay and Kutty, 2005). Though aquaculture has a long history in many countries, it is a relatively young sector which has seen tremendous growth in the last 50 years. In the last five decades, it has seen three times the growth of meat production and has shown an average annual growth rate of 8.3% between 1970 and 2008. It has become, from the most negligible to one that is comparable to capture fisheries in feeding the people around the world. The contribution of aquaculture to the increases in the worldwide fish production for human consumption raised from 42.7 per cent in 2006 to 45.6 per cent in 2008. The importance and reach of aquaculture can be seen from the fact that 80.2% of the food fish produced in 2008 in China is from aquaculture, a huge increase from 23.6% in the 1970s. Aquaculture contributed 26.6% of the rest of the world’s food fish compared to the 4.8% in 1970 and it was worth US$ 98.4 billion. It was estimated that by 2012

In countries like India, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand, shrimp fry that enter the paddy fields and salt beds along the estuaries accidentally were trapped and allowed to fatten with no additional input in the form of feed or shrimp seeds. In Indonesia and Philippines, during tidal exchange of water, shrimp seeds enter the milkfish ponds and were allowed to grow until harvest. Due to the high economic returns, these paddy fields, salt pans and adjoining mangrove areas have been converted to shrimp farms in these countries. Over the years, improvements were made to the traditional method of farming by increasing the stocking density, water exchange, feed input, and addition of growth stimulators, which helped to increase the crop yield