72 Fish as feed inputs for aquaculture – Practices, sustainability and implications
some environmentally friendly and technically acceptable practices and techniques
relating to the use of trash fish were not sufficiently extended among farms.
Mariculture and coastal aquaculture produced only about 50 000 tonnes of fish
and shrimp in 1997, while using an estimated 100 000 tonnes of artificially formulated
feeds. The sector has progressed much further since then and in 2005, the mariculture
production of finfish and crustaceans, which is dependent on external feed inputs,
reached nearly 1.5 million tonnes (Table 1), these practices being spread across an area
of 76 680 and 310 742 ha (shrimp, 230 460 ha and crabs, etc., 80 282 ha), respectively.
The rapid growth of marine finfish and crustacean culture in China since the 1990s
has been facilitated by the development of marine cage-culture technology (Halwart,
Soto and Arthur, 2007), pen culture (Chen et al., 2007), land-based intensive culture
techniques and facilities, and the transformation of low-yield coastal shrimp ponds
into marine finfish farms. In addition, from the late 1990s, Chinese researchers
achieved consecutive successes in the artificial propagation and nursing techniques for
a significant number of marine finfish species with aquaculture potential, facilitating
the growth of finfish farming in all coastal regions and thereby allowing mariculture to
become an important aquaculture subsector in the country.
The national production of marine finfish from aquaculture in 2005 was about
660 000 tonnes (Table 1), and the geographical distribution of this production is
summarized in Table 2. Overall, over 60 species/species groups are cultured, the main
diversity occurring in southern China, in provinces and regions of the South China Sea
coastal areas.FIGURE 6
The rate of growth of finfish and crustacean aquaculture production in Asia as opposed
to the rest of the world over a 25-year period, based on the mean of five-year blocksSource: FAO (2006a)a. Asian finfish b. Asian crustaceansc. Rest of the world finfish d. Rest of the world crustaceans0246810121416G ro w th rate %Brackishwater culture Freshwater culture80 - 84 85 - 89 90 - 94 95 - 99 00 - 04
Years-1001020304050G ro w th rate %80 - 84 85 - 89 90 - 94 95 - 99 00 - 04
YearsBrackishwater culture Freshwater culture01020304050G ro w th rate %Brackishwater culture Freshwater culture
Mariculture80 - 84 85 - 89 90 - 94 95 - 99 00 - 04
Years-2002040608010012080 - 84 85 - 89 90 - 94 95 - 99 00 - 04G ro w th rate %YearsBrackishwater culture Freshwater culture
Mariculture