Taiwan Today

's aquaculture industry aims to use less fresh water, take up less land and produce more high-end products.

The scenery along the seashore of  on the western edge of is quite typical of the coastal areas in the southwest part of . There is a good view of the Taiwan Strait and the land is dotted with commercial fishponds that mostly contain tilapia and milkfish, the two fish that top the list of cultured aquatic species in in terms of volume. Nearer the water's edge, there are sandy strips of land lined with horsetail trees facing the strong wind that comes from the sea year-round, although some of the trees have died, their bare white remains standing in salty water. Such a sight might be considered beautiful by some, but it alarms Wang Chang-hao, a Beimen native. "Those trees are dead because of land subsidence and the seawater encroachment that followed it," says Wang, chairman of the Aquaculture Development Association of Tainan County.

Tainan could be said to be the birthplace of Taiwan's aquaculture industry because it is the spot where the first immigrants from mainland China to Taiwan settled in large numbers and took up the vocation in the 17th century. Later aquaculture spread along the southwest coast and into a few other parts of as well. The development of the sector was aided by the Japanese, who established fishery laboratories to develop methods for rearing fish from 1895 to 1945, the period of their colonial rule over . But the sector did not really take off until the 1960s, when Taiwanese researchers developed the capability to produce large quantities of silver carp and grass carp fish fry through artificial fertilization. Soon they were also able to successfully breed shrimp, black mullet and many other species through artificial fertilization. This was an important step because previously aquaculture operators had to catch wild fish fry and bring them back to fish farms for cultivation.

With the advances in breeding techniques, they soon began to expand the scale of their fish farms, with the result that the total area used by operators in the aquaculture sector in grew from 46,167 hectares in 1972 to 60,892 hectares in 1981. By the early 1990s, the figure had reached 74,000 hectares, including 15,600 hectares of shallow seawater used to cultivate species such as oysters and 54,000 hectares, or 1.5 percent of 's total land area of 36,000 square kilometers, for fish farms on land.

Eels also became a staple of the local aquaculture industry as it developed, partly because of high demand from , although farmers around the world are still unable to cultivate them through artificial fertilization. In 1969, produced 1,571 metric tons of eels, but the figure had risen to 55,837 by 1990. Today, this high-end species is still the top export revenue earner in 's aquaculture sector, taking in a total of more than NT$4.88 billion (US$147.88 million) in 2008. However, when it comes to gross weight, tilapia exports surpassed any other species last year with a haul of 36,500 metric tons, compared to 10,000 metric tons of live and processed eels.

Thanks to the boom in the aquaculture sector, it was not long before people started to dub the "kingdom of tiger shrimp" and the "kingdom of eels." This spurred many people, including those who knew nothing about aquaculture, to invest in the sector because it was so easy and fast to make money after 's effort to breed artificially fertilized fish started to find success, according to Kevin Yu, chairman of the Fish Breeding Association of Taiwan. "A fish farm operator could earn enough money in a matter of months to buy several nice apartments back then," he says.

The boom days for tiger shrimp cultivation, however, came to a sudden stop in the late 1980s when several deadly diseases struck the species, notably the white spot syndrome virus. In the meantime, faced growing competition from abroad. Some of the competition came from former domestic aquaculture operators who had moved their operations to , and other countries in because of their cheaper labor and land costs.

However, according to Huang Che-yuan, chief executive officer of the Aquaculture Development Association of the Republic of China (ROC), more than a few of the companies that ventured abroad have found the going difficult. "Compared with other places in the region, has developed better infrastructure and a more complete supply chain, from fish fry to fish food suppliers," he says. "It's very challenging for aquaculture operators if they can't find a stable supply of fish food and have to depend on unreliable utility systems for water and electricity."

Eye on the Mainland

Around 1990, as Taiwan's private sector began to interact more with that in mainland China, which offered cheap tracts of land and other incentives to lure Taiwanese businesses, many local aquaculture operators also decided to seek opportunities across the Taiwan Strait, where their presence has aided mainland China's development in the sector. "The development of aquaculture breeding technologies in mainland owes much to and ," Yu of the Fish Breeding Association says. Previously, Yu notes, mainland suffered a large trade deficit with , and therefore requested technology transfers from in areas such as aquaculture. In response, the Japanese government sent aquaculture technical missions to the mainland and set up breeding farms to help local operators. Unlike , which played a role in developing the mainland's aquaculture sector through official channels, 's individual companies helped the industry in the mainland through employing local workers, who learned about the companies' innovations and management techniques.

Today, mainland produces more aquaculture products than any other country. While much of the industry's output goes to the local market, the mainland is also a major exporter. According to the Fisheries Agency, while was the top exporter of live eels to until the early 2000s, 60 percent of 's imported eels now come from mainland , compared with 40 percent from .

Another challenge associated with 's neighbor across the strait is the perennial issue of smuggled aquatic products. The prices local aquaculture operators can charge suffer when floods of cheap, illegal imports hit the market, although smuggling has long been a two-way practice, with undocumented Taiwanese seafood also showing up in the mainland. In 2007 the ROC's Coast Guard Administration (CGA) confiscated 5,500 metric tons of smuggled aquatic products on the seas around and at the island's ports. The Coast Guard's preliminary figure for 2008 was 6,100 metric tons, with many more tons likely to have been smuggled into without being intercepted.

The CGA has worked to staunch the flow of smuggled aquatic products since it was established in 2000 and is especially busy when the domestic demand for such items increases around the Lunar New Year holiday. With such strong demand, completely eradicating the activity would be difficult, given that is an island with 1,566 kilometers of coastline. Nevertheless, some involved in the sector believe that the pressure the illegal imports put on local operators makes it imperative for the government to take stronger action. "I think the government can take good care of local aquaculture operators by cracking down on fish smuggling," the Aquaculture Development Association's Huang Che-yuan says.

A Subsiding Issue

Another problem faced by 's aquaculture industry is land subsidence, which has been caused by excessive pumping of groundwater to fill fishponds. According to the Water Resources Agency (WRA), the area of subsiding land in 10 years ago totaled around 1,600 square kilometers, with about half that amount continuing to subside today. For evidence that subsidence often accompanies aquaculture operations in , one need look no further than in . One of the places in southern with a high concentration of tiger shrimp farms, the ground in Jiadong sank 324 centimeters between 1972 and 2006.

The excessive pumping of water causes problems such as soil salinization and land subsidence, which can lead to flooding, issues that caused the aquaculture industry to be tagged with a negative reputation as it used ever-greater amounts of fresh water to raise species like Japanese eels, which need pure fresh water. Even some saltwater marine species are known to grow faster and larger if a percentage of fresh water is added to their ponds, adding an incentive for operators to use more of it. Drawing water from rivers and creeks is not an option for the aquaculture industry because such water is prone to pollution in downstream areas near the coast, where most fish farms are located. This makes pumping groundwater, which is comparatively clean and relatively easy to obtain, the most obvious water source for aquaculture operators.

Some within the aquaculture industry dispute the amount of damage their operations cause to the environment, however. "It's wrong to put all the blame on aquaculture activity," Huang Che-yuan of the Aquaculture Development Association says. "Actually the fish farms should be credited with storing rainwater and recharging the level of aquifers." The reason why the industry is an easy target, he says, is because it mostly operates in low-lying coastal areas that are sensitive to the impacts of land subsidence in the first place.

Ding Chung-feng, a senior researcher at the Land Subsidence Prevention and Reclamation Corps (LSPRC), which is affiliated with in , estimates that households and the industrial sector have also contributed to the falling groundwater levels. However, he adds that it is hard to assess how much damage homes and industry have done to the environment since their water pumps are hidden in back yards or in factory compounds, in contrast with fish farms in the open air.

Still, there is no denying that the rise of aquaculture has played a role in the issue of land subsidence in . As there is no practical way to raise areas that have subsided back to their previous elevation, the government concentrates on preventing affected areas from subsiding further, with the WRA and the Council of Agriculture (COA) cooperating on a joint project to fight subsidence since 1995. The project encourages aquaculture operators to rear saltwater species and reduce the use of fresh water through such means as subsidizing the purchase of water recycling systems. The COA has also built three pumping stations on the coast in Yilan, Pingtung and Yunlin counties to provide seawater to local aquaculture operators, and has also helped improve canals that deliver seawater to and drain it from the fish farms.

The LSPRC was established in 1997 and is responsible for implementing the central government's policies to fight subsidence and providing technical services to the seven local governments confronting the problem. It has also been educating locals about the harm caused by subsidence. One of those responding to the organization's call to protect the environment is resident Wang Chang-hao, who has been urging local aquaculture operators in the area to pump less groundwater to prevent further subsidence. The most recent survey in 2007 showed that the Beimen area had sunk less than 3 centimeters, he says proudly.

Technically speaking, this means the area is free from the problem, as the WRA defines an area as subsiding if it sinks more than 3 centimeters in a year. The situation is also improving in the rest of , as around 820 square kilometers of land is subsiding today, mostly in Changhua, Yunlin and Chiayi counties, or about half of the 1,616 square kilometers of land that was sinking in the late 1990s. However, Wang and other activists agree that there is much more work to be done to fully eliminate the problem.

One reason that subsidence has slowed is that the boom days of the aquaculture sector have ended, with the area of land occupied by terrestrial fish farms falling to 39,000 hectares today from 54,000 hectares in the 1990s. Another reason is that aquaculture operators are increasingly turning to saltwater products. Today, 4.2 kilograms of aquatic products are reared in salt water for every 5.8 kilograms in fresh water, compared with 3.5 kilograms of saltwater products to 6.5 kilograms of freshwater products in the early 1990s.

Future Directions

Chen Tain-shou, deputy director-general of the Fisheries Agency, says that along with government policy and rising environmental awareness, 's increasing prosperity has also played a role in pushing the shift toward saltwater aquaculture. "Aquaculture operators change their products according to market demand," he says. "In the past, people ate freshwater fish. But now they can afford saltwater fish, which are twice as expensive on average but taste better. Many also believe they are more nutritious."

As with other industries in , the aquaculture sector is increasingly turning to environmentally sustainable products. Fish fry culturing, for example, can usually produce a large amount of baby fish and make them available for sale in two months while using a relatively small amount of water and taking up relatively little space, whereas raising adult fish can take one year before they are large enough to be sold on the market. To assist the development of fry cultivation in , the COA's Fisheries Research Institute developed screening techniques about three years ago to ensure that white shrimp fry are free from diseases. These techniques have been transferred to local fish fry farms and they help to enhance the competitiveness of locally reared fry in export markets.

The institute is currently working on a method to breed virus-free grouper fry, as grouper appears to be the new rising star of 's aquaculture industry. While most of the island's cultured live eels are exported to , more than 70 percent of the equally high-end grouper raised in salt water in go to mainland . With direct cross-strait transportation links opening up and the shipment times to transport groupers to the mainland becoming shorter, the COA expects the value of the products for export to the mainland will reach at least NT$3 billion (US$90 million) annually. The bonus of grouper cultivation is that, as a saltwater fish, they require less fresh water and thus reduce the subsidence caused by pumping.

Another upscale area of aquaculture that operators are looking at is breeding coldwater, deep ocean fish fry and adult fish, many of them high-end species such as sole and salmon. Pumping deep seawater for aquaculture is a concept worth exploring for local operators, the Fish Breeding Association's Kevin Yu says. He suggests that should make good use of the cold and clean water deep in the sea off 's east coast, which goes down more than 600 meters, compared with 200 meters in the off the island's west coast. "With the deep seawater, we can develop a totally virgin area of coldwater fish cultivation and therefore expect decades of prosperity for local operators," he says. Although pumping deep seawater remains costly, such an operational mode would aid the environment by reducing subsidence problems caused by fish farms that pump fresh groundwater.

According to the Fisheries Research Institute, a couple of large enterprises are experimenting with rearing coldwater species in seawater pumped from deep in the ocean on the east coast. The government will assist in the effort by establishing an aquatic species center under the COA in Taitung on the east coast within two years. The center will be responsible for developing and breeding high-quality fish fry using deep seawater.

Perhaps the ultimate means of reducing the environmental impact of land-based aquaculture is to shift operations offshore. To emphasize the need to develop mariculture, Chen Tain-shou of the Fisheries Agency likes to refer to Managing in the Next Society by self-described "social ecologist" Peter Drucker. In the 2002 book, the scholar points out several major future trends, one of which is offshore fish farming. Drucker writes that raising fish at sea will change today's deep-sea fishermen, who now operate in a hunter-gatherer mode, into "marine pastoralists." Chen is in total agreement with Drucker's view, noting that there are several reasons for shifting aquaculture to the oceans. For one, Chen says, humanity should cherish the world's limited and valuable land resources, which account for only 29 percent of the surface of the earth. Second, has a relatively large population living on a small land area, so it makes sense to put the waters surrounding the island to use. Finally, he says that many marine species face depletion from traditional fishing methods and will sooner or later fail to meet the demands of the world's ever-growing human population.

Backing Mariculture

All of these factors explain why Chen is a strong backer of cage mariculture, although it too carries environmental risks, such as the potential damage to the ocean's ecological balance if non-native species escape from fish farms or the impact on wild fish in the area from feed or drugs used for mariculture. already has some experience with mariculture, which began on a small scale in the 1970s in the waters of the Penghu archipelago west of proper. However, this operational mode did not receive serious attention until the 1990s, when related technologies improved and environmentalists began to notice the problems associated with terrestrial aquaculture. Today Penghu still produces more fish via this method than any other place in , but fish farmers off the shores of Pingtung in southern are also beginning to use the technique.

Copia accounts for about 80 to 90 percent of the cage-cultured saltwater fish produced in . About 4,544 metric tons of the tropical fish were produced in 2007, up from 3,640 metric tons in 2000. However, Chen Tain-shou thinks it will be hard for marine aquaculture operators to make further progress in this area if they are unwilling to invest in facilities that can handle the rough seas caused by the typhoons that strike every year.

Like terrestrial cultivation using deep seawater, which is still in the experimental stage due to its high pumping costs, cage mariculture provides a hopeful direction for Taiwan's industry in the future, but is still far from becoming a main method of aquaculture production. Still, in , where more and more people are unwilling to accept serious environmental damage as a necessary part of economic development, such techniques are growing increasingly important. As the Fisheries Agency's Chen says, "It's wrong for the sector to create revenues at the expense of the environment." may no longer be known as an aquaculture kingdom, but it is committed to developing the sector, one of the oldest on the island, in a healthier manner.

Write to Oscar Chung at oscar@mail.gio.gov.tw