GCC aquaculture plan to start with Dh293m project off coast of Oman

Emirates Star Fisheries in Dubai aims to produce 13,000 tonnes of fish a year by 2018.

Prathapachandra Shetty, Emirates Star Fisheries executive director, is planning for an aquaculture project to be set up by his company on the coast of Oman. Antonie Robertson / The National

DUBAI // A regional fund is being established for Arabian Gulf countries to contribute to the future production of food through aquaculture.

Set up by Emirates Star Fisheries in Dubai, the first project that will benefit kicks off in Oman in 2016, with the aim to produce 13,000 tonnes of fish a year by 2018.

“Aquaculture is largely unheard of in the Gulf,” said Prathapchandra Shetty, executive director of the company. “The idea is very good because there is a problem in agriculture in the region and you can’t push it too much here in the desert because there is a lack of water, the temperature is too high and the soil isn’t suitable. It’s all very expensive too, so there’s no point.”

His focus is on the 7,000 kilometres of coastline off Oman and Yemen.

“Open sea is better and it is less polluted,” he said. “It’s a very blessed place because there aren’t that many people there so it can be converted into a food basket.”

The Dh293 million project will involve inland aquaculture, cage farming, and mariculture, also known as offshore farming.

“In cages, there are commercially viable successful businesses of bluefin and yellowfin tuna,” Mr Shetty said. “Some people are worried about the quality of the fish but these culture systems can provide very fresh quality tuna.”

After surveying 3,000km of coastal land in Oman, Mr Shetty will submit a proposal to the Omani Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries this week requesting four thousand hectares of land.

“We will develop a hatchery complex for shrimp, tuna, cobia and sea bream, because these are established species and they are more commercially viable.”

The first phase, from 2016 to 2018, is expected to produce 3,000 tonnes of fish in the first year, 8,000 tonnes in the second and 13,000 tonnes in the final year. This includes 10,000 tonnes of shrimp and 3,000 tonnes of tuna, cobia and sea bream.

Experts say the practice has potential as a source of protein in such a water-scarce region.

“This is due to the efficient feed-conversion ratio, efficient utilisation of imported feedstock and also due to the unsuitable climate conditions for agricultural production,” said Nicholas Lodge, managing partner of Clarity, an Abu Dhabi-based agriculture consultancy. “Demand for protein is forecast to increase significantly in the region, reflective of expected increase in disposable income and population growth.”

Although aquaculture can play an increasingly important role, he said it came with challenges.

“Technically, it is quite difficult,” Mr Lodge said. “Suitable land can be more difficult to secure than may be first thought and availability of suitable feed is already an issue and may limit expansion plans. So, in principle it makes sense, and it is more suited perhaps to the region than other forms of protein production. However, experience to date indicates that it is hard to get right, requires large amounts of capital and, critically, the right technical partners and know-how.”

Jean-Yves Mevel, an aquaculture professor at UAE University, said a clear vision for the development of aquaculture with more research programmes was needed before setting up large production systems. “Cobia and tuna are not yet successfully produced in the world,” he said.

“Cobia has been done in Colombia and other places, but commercially speaking, there are problems associated with farm-raised animals that need to be addressed. Tuna is in the early development stage and expertise is very limited, but the potential is there.”

The aim is for the fund to reach Dh550m initially and Dh1.8 billion eventually.

“We’re looking for investors to create the fund,” Mr Shetty said. “This is the future for food production in the region. There’s no other possibility.”