Aquaculture in Australia

CSIRO Salmon cages. Australia's aquaculture industry has an annual value of more than $600 million and is expanding at the rate of 20% per year.

Aquaculture in Australia is the country's fastest-growing primary industry, accounting for 34% of the total gross value of production of seafood.[1] 10 species of fish are farmed in Australia, and production is dominated by southern bluefin tuna, Atlantic salmon and barramundi.[2] Mud crabs have also been cultivated in Australia for many years, sometimes leading to over-exploitation.[3] Traditionally, this aquaculture was limited to table oysters and pearls, but since the early 1970s, there has been significant research and commercial development of other forms of aquaculture, including finfish, crustaceans, and molluscs.[4]

Australia produces 240,000 tonnes of fish a year with aquaculture contributing a third to this. Over the decade to 2006–07 aquaculture production has almost doubled from 29,300 tonnes to 57,800 tonnes. The gross value of aquaculture production in Australia continued to rise in 2007–08 by $62.7 million to $868 million.[5] In 2008 the Aquaculture industry directly employed more than 7000 people and indirectly contributed 20,000 and was the fastest-growing primary industry in Australia.[6]

  1. ^ "National Aquaculture Sector Overview: Australia". Food and Agriculture Organization. Archived from the original on 13 April 2009. Retrieved 25 April 2009.
  2. ^ Bray, Dianne. "Aquaculture". Fishes of Australia. Retrieved 30 September 2014.
  3. ^ Don Fielder, Geoff Allan, ed. (April 2003). Mud crab aquaculture in Australia and Southeast Asia. Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research. p. 70.
  4. ^ Jay V. Huner (1994). Freshwater crayfish aquaculture in North America, Europe, and Australia. Haworth Press. p. 218. ISBN 1-56022-039-2.
  5. ^ Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE) & Fisheries Research and Development Corporation (FRDC), "Australian Fisheries Statistics 2008," http://www.abareconomics.com/publications_html/afs/afs_09/09_FishStats.pdf Archived 30 July 2009 at the Wayback Machine July 2009, pg 17, retrieved 25 August 2009.
  6. ^ Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, "Aquaculture Industry-Overview," [1] October 2008, retrieved 25 August 2009 Archived 29 September 2009 at the Wayback Machine