Farmed salmon production is booming in Australia, and prawn farming is the next big sector to watch out for, according to a recent report from agribusiness research firm Rabobank International, “Smooth Sailing for the Australian Seafood Industry.”
A new initiative from Seafarms Group Ltd, a subsidiary of Commodities Group Ltd., “Project Sea Dragon,” aims to make Australia a much bigger player in the global shrimp farming industry.
Seafarms’ pre-feasibility work on the project has focused on the initial development of 10,000 hectares of grow-out ponds, producing more than 100,000 metric tons of black tiger prawns annually. The company has already assembled a land bank for the project.
The USD 125 billion (EUR 99.9 billion) endeavor is expected to produce a 44 percent internal rate of return, according to Seafarms. The company also expects success after garnering “high level support from both state and federal government … which is vital to securing land access and production licenses,” according to a statement on Seafarms’ website.
Australian producers are in the perfect position to grow the global shrimp aquaculture industry, according to Gorjan Nikolik, associate director of animal protein for Rabobank. “Australia, with its remoteness and very extensive trade barriers, will likely be excluded from any kind of contamination,” Nikolik told SeafoodSource.
“The shrimp industry is now in one of its worst [Early Mortality Syndrome] outbreaks in decades. It is uncertain how long EMS will continue to plague Thailand and Chinese production … so it is very much an under-supplied market. Australia has the feed, land, biosecurity and climate [to succeed],” Nikolik added.
In addition to prawns, Seafarms says that barramundi and native catfish have been identified for large-scale tropical aquaculture production.
Meanwhile, the farmed salmon industry in Tasmania is the largest aquaculture sector in Australia, thanks to domestic demand, which has grown around 10 percent annually. “The sector remains profitable and is growing with a very positive outlook, given how strong demand is relative to the restricted supply,” the report stated.
Rabobank predicts continued growth of the farmed salmon sector in the foreseeable future, because Australian per capita consumption is still much lower than other western countries with comparable incomes. Around 90 percent of production is currently consumed domestically.
