Academic to showcase grouper ‘drawer breeding’
National Kaohsiung Marine University’s Advanced Aqua-Bio System Lab is set to display its recently developed “drawer breeding” technology for producing groupers March 13 as part of Kaohsiung County’s “marine season” activities.
The technology, developed in line with the university’s campaign to protect marine farms, involves shifting outdoor grouper breeding farms indoors to guard them against natural disasters.
Typhoon Morakot that swept across southern Taiwan last August ravaged the grouper breeding industry in the region, causing more than NT$4 billion (US$125.6 million) in losses overnight.
Tom Hsiao, a professor in the university’s Department of Aquaculture, said grouper is a delicacy loved by consumers at home and abroad, fetching more than NT$1,000 per kilogram. He added that the island’s annual production amounts to roughly NT$5 billion.
“Facing drastic global climate change, the time to come up with response measures is already upon us,” he said.
Three years ago, Hsiao led lab members in successfully developing “drawer breeding” technology for producing shrimp. In recent years, the technology has been applied to grouper breeding. It has been discovered that using the technique not only reduces viruses in the fish but also boosts the fish’s resistance to disease, allowing for greater production efficiency.
Amid the threats of disease and climate change, using such marine farm technology will ensure the future viability of the aquaculture industry.
Hsiao explained that the “drawer breeding” technique in theory integrates the reduction of disease sources in indoor fish fry breeding farms with epidemic prevention in outdoor breeding ponds to produce shrimp and fish.
With outdoor ponds exposed to the effects of climate change, he said the lab’s next step is to reduce the size of breeding facilities and shift them completely indoors.
In the future, the industry will be able to set up collective breeding farms indoors, or use space on the top floors of residential buildings, car garages or even living rooms to set up breeding areas. “All you need is about 10 ping of space [33 square meters], and you’ll be able to breed groupers,” he said. (SB)
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