Here is my guess on the visitors from Japan the other day that was mentioned by Alkame. I believe its the Aquaculture programs that Alkame has to offer that drew them to Alkame. Here is an article that helps back up my guess. This is big industry in many countries and Japan is definitely one of them. Wild guess here but it makes sense what do you think?
Trends in Freshwater and Marine Aquaculture
Denis Lacroix. Ifremer. France
The demand for fish products, from freshwater and from the sea, is globally increasing all over the world. This major trend can be explained by the development of mankind, not only in quantity (one billion people more in the last 15 years) but also because food consumption habits are changing: for southern countries, fish products consumption is first a diversification of protein sources. For northern countries, it is a new style of eating with diet, tasteful and original products coming from the attractive « new frontier »
symbolised by the sea. Global/y speaking, the aquatic product consumption raised from 9 to 13 kg./unhab./year during the last 30 years.
It is now clear that catches from all fisheries cannot match this steady increase of the demand as data
collected from al/ countries reveal the stagnation of the world production since the beginning of the nineties.
The reasons are now well-known: over-capacity of fishing fleets, over-fishing of many stocks, poor
management of harvested species which results in about 20 millions of tons of waste while the same amount
is processed into fishmeal and oil, out of direct human consumption.
The only way to face this gap is aquaculture. In 1996, world aquaculture production represents 26 millions tons without algae, which is 21 % of the total landings of aquatic products The proportion was 8 % only, ten years before, for similar fishery catch. This evolution is a very general trend. This activity has very ancient roots, in China for carps or in Egypt for tilapia. Therefore, it is logical to record the two third of the world production from freshwater: mainly Asian carps up to 10 millions tons, then tilapia,
catfish, trout and numerous freshwater species.
The rearing of marine species is now developing rapidly: the best example is given by salmon, which production reached 4.000 T from 4 countries in 1980, and scores at 700.000 T. from 15 countries in 1997. Besides well-known productions like yellowtail or japanese seabream, new species are raised successfully
today: mediterranean seabass and seabream (up to 70.000 T. in 1997), various flatfishes, tuna, dolphin fish, groupers, pompanos, etc. The main producers in aquaculture are in Asia: China, India, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Japan and South Korea. In the Western hemisphere, the United States, France and Norway play an important role in salmon industry or in shellfish production. Thanks to the combination of an international market, the availability of new species and new technologies and numerous favorable sites, more and more countries may become significant producers in aquaculture in a quite short period of time:
Ecuador for shrimp, Chile for salmon, Greece for seabass and seabream are recent and clear examples of this capacity to establish a new sector of activity in a decade. Various prospective studies foresee that aquaculture will reach the level of fishery catch within the next 25 years. However the predictable shortage of fishmeal, necessary component of most aquaculture diets, will have to be solved through the research of plant substitutes. Development constraints are numerous, because the strong pressure of human activity both on rivers and on the seashore: town expansion, irrigation, flood control, power plant cooling, industry, mass tourism, etc. This has to be combined with the protection of several areas of ecological interest.
in the same time, consumers are asking for a greater choice of fish products and a perfect sanitary reliability. These two main constraints will determine the characteristics of future aquaculture. Inland aquaculture will progress still, with more and more intensive systems of rearing. The scarcity of good quality water involves to develop recirculation systems using high technologies to secure production and water quality. In the same time, extensive systems may be used in some areas where aquaculture remains compatible with a rich natural life such as the « valli » in Italy or the mullet production in the great
brackish water lakes of Egypt. Marine aquaculture will expand through several systems: first, offshore cages offer a huge potential with a limited and reversible impact on environment; second, recirculated intensive inshore farms can propose fresh sea products, close to inland main towns or supermarkets hubs; final/y, aquaculture may become one of the major activities in the management of coastal areas including scuba diving tourism,
notably with the great potential of three recent technologies, mainly developed in Japan and in some Northern countries: artificial reefs, sea ranching and stock enhancement. Aquaculture has a great potential, as its development takes into account three key-factors: the world market demand for attractive, diverse
and safe products, the adaptation of a great diversity of technologies to sites and social environment, and final/y the integration of this activity in fragile and already developed areas, as one of the major elements in global coastal and rivers management.
