Tropical Fish Farming Has Huge Future - 27/09/2004

Newly elected President of the Australian Barramundi Farmers Association Mr Craig Foster today said that tropical fish farming has a huge future in Australia.

“Until now, the focus of aquaculture in Australia has been on cold water species such as Tuna and Salmon but that is changing” Mr Foster said.

“The Australian Barramundi sector is set to increase production in the 2004-2005 season by a massive 32 percent according to our industry survey.

“This makes Barramundi farming one of the fastest growing sectors in primary production. Consumer demand is exceeding our supply and we expect that the industry will have difficulty meeting customer requirements in the short term. The latest National Aquaculture Council Survey highlighted that consumers thought Australian Barramundi need to be more widely available” he said.

Mr Foster said that his own company, Marine Harvest, the largest aquaculture company in the world with sales in excess of $1 billion Euros, was a major investor in the Australian aquaculture industry and had made large commitments to tropical barramundi farming.

“Tropical Australia has a huge future for aquaculture.

“Barramundi is a superb table fish, rightly regarded as the premium species in the food industry and it has a very strong cultural identity to tropical Australia. People come from around the world to eat Australian Barramundi

“The farmed Barramundi industry produces a highly consistent, better tasting product and it is produced under the strictest environmental standards.

“Consumers should look for Australian produced farmed Barramundi labels to ensure they were buying the very best seafood available” Mr Foster said.

Mr Foster said that the Barramundi industry is producing large numbers of jobs in remote areas of Australia from Bathurst Island in the Timor Sea off the Northern Territory, Lake Argyle in far north Western Australia, tropical Queensland.

It is even even grown in warm bore water in southern states” he said

For further information contact Craig Foster 0419322584

Mr Foster is based in Tasmania and his company has a major involvement in southern aquaculture as well as the rapidly developing tropical barramundi industry.