The Fisheries Agency will begin farming young bluefin tuna in an onshore aquafarm in April.
The onshore facility will be a world-first for bluefin tuna, according to the agency. It will build two large tanks in Nagasaki Prefecture, providing controlled conditions for water temperature and feeding, which will allow for the collection of fish eggs at precise times. The tuna fry will then be transferred to offshore fish pens and raised there.
If the agency can establish a system that allows bluefin to be spawned and raised to maturity, prices for the fish may go down significantly.
Farm-raised bluefin tuna accounts for about 20% of total consumption. Most farmed tuna is caught offshore when the fish are still very young and are then raised in aquafarms.
Kinki University and other organizations have succeeded in raising fish through their entire life cycle in offshore pens, but the timing of egg-laying and the amount of eggs collected varies greatly because environmental conditions are uncontrolled. This makes stable production difficult.
The Fisheries Agency aims to create a stable supply of juvenile bluefin, providing nearly 100,000 young tuna for farming within five years. That is equal to about 20% of the wild juvenile bluefin caught for farming each year.
There are restrictions on bluefin tuna catches globally due to concerns over shrinking ocean fish stocks. This has fueled demand for bluefin tuna farming, as the fish is a popular ingredient in sashimi and sushi.