China to boost aquaculture with USD 47m project

Beijing municipal government has spent a stunning RMB 294 million (USD 47.4 million, EUR 34.4 million) since 2010 to ensure that yields are improved from RMB 15,000 (USD 2,420, EUR 1,756) to RMB 24,000 (USD 3,873, EUR 2,809) per mu (15 mu in a hectare) in value terms each year. A further RMB 34 million (USD 5.5 million, EUR 4 million) will be spent this year. The goal is to add 6,000 metric tons (MT) to the Beijing region’s freshwater fish output: part of a broader local government plan to enlarge the city’s “food basket.”

Beijing’s eagerness to meet its rising seafood needs is apparent in a heavily subsidized overhaul of the freshwater aquaculture resources in the region of the capital city (whose urban and rural counties cover an area the size of Belgium). In Miyun county two hours outside the city proper, fish farmers are availing of generous subsidies from the local government to restore ponds and build what are termed “greenhouse”-style fish farms: indoor year-round production in tanks with water recirculating systems.

According to the city’s government press office, this year Beijing is also subsidizing the building of 12 specialized “breeding farms” producing carp, perch and eels. “The goal is to eliminate small, scattered and inefficient ponds and to industrialize our fish farming,” explained a government spokesman this week on the Beijing TV channel run by local government. Also interviewed, fish farmer Wang Xiaoyue had a third of the price of new ponds and water systems. His is one of the 28 “standardized” fish farms promoted by the city as models for others to follow — a model paid for with taxpayers’ money.

Another priority of the plan is to reduce the water usage by the fisheries sector: 290,000 square meters per year can be saved, according to officials, through more efficient farms. Freshwater farms still supply the bulk of fish needs in China. Freshwater output will rise 5.5 percent a year between 2013 and 2018, according to a recent report by the Beijing-based Shangpu Consulting group. Output at 22.2 million MT in 2010 was up 4.6 percent year-on-year while freshwater fishery sector grew by an average 5 percent a year between 2009-2013, with 5,907 hectares of Chinese land under use for fish ponds in 2012, up 3.12 percent year-on-year.

Many of the challenges facing China’s aquaculture sector are visible in Miyun, a largely agricultural area which recently published an economic plan in line with the national and city government’s new priority to cut pollution while also raising rural incomes through investment in farming (and fisheries). The Miyun area has been forced to requisition farm and fish farm land to plant new forestry belts to fight pollution and desertification while also reducing water pollution and usage, said Miyun mayor Wang Haichen. Yet Wang is also committed to spurring growth in rural areas and improving rural incomes, which at RMB 16,000 (USD 2,582, EUR 1,873) per year are half the urban average in the county.