Wes­ley Gib­bings

With eyes set on new eco­nom­ic growth poles, aqua­cul­ture ex­perts are of the view that op­por­tu­ni­ties in their field need to be bet­ter ex­plored.

For this rea­son, long­stand­ing com­mer­cial aqua­farmer Kent Vieira in­sists that the coun­try needs to pay greater at­ten­tion to build­ing ca­pac­i­ty with­in the sec­tor by shar­ing knowl­edge of the know-hows of the in­dus­try.

Vieira de­scribes the prospects as "glob­al" in na­ture and high­ly achiev­able be­cause of some nat­ur­al ad­van­tages.

"Cli­mate wise we can pro­duce year round and so can sus­tain­ably and con­sis­tent­ly sup­ply mar­kets," Vieira told T&T Guardian and he makes spe­cif­ic ref­er­ence to the farm­ing of tilapia.

"The po­ten­tial is re­al big," he said, how­ev­er adding that oth­er species such as the cat­fish-like "swai" al­so of­fer op­por­tu­ni­ties to turn big prof­its.

"It (swai) is a cat­fish species but has huge po­ten­tial as it can be farmed six times more than the rate of tilapia in the same space," Vieira added. He said dwin­dling ocean fish sup­plies al­so point to the need for greater ex­ploita­tion of in­land fish farm­ing re­sources.

Agri­cul­tur­al sci­en­tist, Steve Max­i­may, said such think­ing al­so makes sound en­vi­ron­men­tal sense. "With the in­creas­ing con­cerns about agri­chem­i­cals pro­duced from fos­sil fu­el based op­er­a­tions aquapon­ics pro­vides a way for spent wa­ter from aqua­cul­ture op­er­a­tions to be used as the fer­tilis­er for crop pro­duc­tion," he said.

"Ma­rine fish­eries al­so cur­rent­ly present chal­lenges re­lat­ed to de­clin­ing fish stocks, longer dis­tances per fish­ing ex­pe­di­tion and oth­er fac­tors," Max­i­may told T&T Guardian.

"Fish pro­tein will con­tin­ue to play a ma­jor role in nu­tri­tion se­cu­ri­ty," he said. "In terms of val­ued added, the non-food rem­nants of fish fil­let­ing can be used as fish­meal for an­i­mal feed or for com­post­ing while the im­proved tech­nolo­gies for fish skin tan­ning al­so makes aqua­cul­ture a worth­while ven­ture."

Vieira is be­hind an up­com­ing fish farm­ing train­ing se­ries fo­cus­ing on tilapia, How to make mon­ey in Tilapia Pro­duc­tion, which is be­ing host­ed on Au­gust 18 with ses­sions on Pro­duc­tion and Feed and Au­gust 27 look­ing at Breed­ing and Re­pro­duc­tion and again on Oc­to­ber 1 when there will be ses­sions on Mar­ket­ing and Pro­cess­ing.

All ses­sions will be host­ed at Vieira's Freeport op­er­a­tions. In­ter­est­ed per­sons can get more in­for­ma­tion by call­ing 673-3222 or email­ing sales@kent­farm­sltd.com