Blog icon

The challenge

The growing demand for seafood

Australia’s population is predicted to reach 46 million by 20751. Among the many challenges this will bring is the need for Australia to continue to secure its own food supply, contribute to the food supply of the region and be competitive in global food markets.

Australia’s animal-based food industries have a major role to play in meeting this challenge. The well established terrestrial livestock sectors (beef, dairy and others) currently export between 60 per cent and 70 per cent of their production, with an annual export value of around $7.5 billion. Thus the livestock sector is well placed to continue to play a major role in Australia’s food supplies and export markets.

In contrast to this, 70 per cent of the seafood that Australians consume is imported, with annual imports of around $1.5 billion. Around 50 per cent of our prawns are imported. This represents a significant opportunity for environmentally and economically sustainable growth of marine aquaculture in Australia.

Globally, aquaculture has been the fastest growing food production sector since the 1950s, approximately doubling production each decade. The global growth of aquaculture (7 per cent per year) far exceeds that of human population growth (0.5 per cent per year) and that of food production on land (2 per cent per year).

Of particular significance to Australia is that marine aquaculture is a drought-proof industry and there is huge potential for economically and environmentally sustainable expansion of pond-based marine aquaculture around our northern coast line.

Our response

Sustainable prawn farming

CSIRO's black tiger prawn produces record yields in aquaculture farms.

Our scientists undertook a ten year program of selective breeding in order to develop the prawn now being used by prawn farmers in Australia.

Domesticated founder stocks have been established at three farms. Broodstock rearing knowledge and technology has been transferred from CSIRO to each farm. Novel genetic and viral health screening and mating allocation systems developed by CSIRO, are being implemented on-farm.

The use of genetic markers means that natural mating is now a cost-effective alternative to rearing each breeding family in separate tanks. The viral screening technology is assisting the industry to develop breeds that are highly tolerant to endemic diseases.


The results

The prawn that ticks all the boxes

The Australian Black Tiger prawn, developed through a collaboration between CSIRO and industry partners, has many positive features:

  • Developed and bred in Australia – the new breed is providing a real boost for the prawn farming industry in Australia, resulting in job growth, more profitable and productive businesses, and fresher home-grown product.
  • Tastier – the new Black Tiger breed has won five gold medals at the Sydney Royal Easter Show for Gold Coast Marine Aquaculture in the last two years, including the highest award possible: ‘Champion of Show’.
  • Sustainable and renewable – the new breed is grown and farmed in drought-proof salt water ponds, which eases pressure on ocean/estuary stocks. Having a home grown supply of breeding stock also allows for continuity and consistency of production.
  • More productive – the new breeds have improved growth and survival rates, boosting pond yields by more than 50 per cent. The average industry productivity for farmed prawns is five tonnes per hectare. The new prawns produced an average of 12.8 tonnes per hectare in 2009. After eight generations of selective breeding at one Australian prawn farm, the average yield of the new breed the following year (2010) was 17.5 tonnes per hectare. One pond produced 24.2 tonnes per hectare - a world record yield result for Black Tiger prawns.
  • Securing food supply – the sustainable and high yielding new prawn breed could play an important role in helping secure food supplies around the world through the production of a more sustainable, continuous, consistent and higher yielding source of healthy protein.

Potential for huge industry growth

Independent economic analysis indicates that if the entire Australian Black Tiger prawn industry adopted this new breeding technology, it would increase the industry’s production from 5000 tonnes to 12,500 tonnes and add $120 million to the value of the industry by 2020 (assuming no further expansion of production area).

The significance of the research project is in dramatically improving the production efficiency and profitability of locally produced seafood.

The critical enabling technology, developed by CSIRO, now means Australian prawn producers can out-compete international producers, despite the lower labour costs in most of the competing countries.

[Music plays CSIRO logo and text appears: We asked CSIRO]

Nick Moore: It was back in the '90s we realised that to be successful we needed to domesticate the black tiger prawn, in other words, breed them in captivity.

[Image changes to black tiger prawns in water]

Now we knew most of that, but we couldn't do it all on our own.

[Image changes to Nick Moore, Gold Coast Marine Aquaculture]

So we asked CSIRO to give us a hand and basically what they've come and helped us with is the health screening of them, and now, as we've got to the end of the whole road, the genetics.

[Image has changed to a man spooning something from a tin into an aquaculture pool]

We can now truly breed them in captivity very successfully and very commercially.

[Image has changed back to Nick]

Every year our prawns are improving.

[Image has changed to black tiger prawns in water] We've got a prawn that we consider to be as good as anyone in the world and that's been attested to recently when we've won the gold medals at the recent Royal Easter Show and have now been nominated for the Presidents Medal, which is the top six of all of the champions.

[Image has changed to black tiger prawns in water and then back to Nick]

The results that we're getting now from our domesticated stock is probably three times more than we'll get from any East Coast of the wild.

[Image changes to water tanks and then back to aquaculture pools, camera pans down to show prawns at the bottom of the tank]

But it's more than that, not only do they grow faster and eat less food, and obviously create a far better economic return for us, it's a matter of getting your animals into the ponds when you require them and that's priceless.

[Image has changed back to Nick]

The relationship with CSIRO has been very beneficial to the whole industry, we've got a situation now where we can guarantee to stock our ponds on the week, almost to the day that we require and that's something you can't do when you go to the wild. I think, going back, some years ago, we realised you'd need as many as 12 ducks to line up in a row and CSIRO's given us the last two ducks.

[Image changes to black tiger prawns in water]

They're great to work with, they're professional, but I think what stands them out, more than anything else, is they have true desire and a wish to succeed, the same as we do and when we succeed they get just a bigger kick as we do.

[Music plays and CSIRO logo appears with the text: Big ideas start here www.csiro.au]

Share & embed this video

Link

http://vimeo.com/114510713

Copied!

Embed code

<iframe src="//player.vimeo.com/video/114510713" width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; fullscreen" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Copied!


Contact us

Find out how we can help you and your business. Get in touch using the form below and our experts will get in contact soon!

CSIRO will handle your personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and our Privacy Policy.


First name must be filled in

Surname must be filled in

I am representing *

Please choose an option

Please provide a subject for the enquriy

0 / 100

We'll need to know what you want to contact us about so we can give you an answer

0 / 1900

You shouldn't be able to see this field. Please try again and leave the field blank.