Technological Advances that Led to Growth of Shrimp, Salmon, and Tilapia Farming

ABSTRACT

Aquaculture has been the world's fastest growing food production sector with an annual growth rate of 8%. Total aquaculture supply increased dramatically from 0.7 mMT in 1950 to 90 mMT in 2012. Growth of the global seafood supply was made possible through adoption of new technologies that brought more control over aquaculture production processes. This review presents evidence of supply-side technological progress that spurred growth in shrimp, salmon, and tilapia production from 1981 to 2012. Greater availability of hatchery-raised post-larvae, better feed formulations, and a shift in preferred shrimp species from Penaeus monodon to Specific Pathogen Free (SPF) Litopenaeus vannamei appear to have been critical technological advances that triggered rapid growth of shrimp farming. Nutritionally balanced feed, use of automated labor-saving equipment, genetic selection programs, and development of vaccines triggered growth of Atlantic salmon production. Diffusion of Genetically Improved Farm Tilapia (GIFT) was a key technological development that fueled rapid growth of tilapia farming. Understanding the technological advances that led to growth of shrimp, salmon, and tilapia farming may provide insights for future growth of other aquaculture species.

KEYWORDS:

• technology adoption
• technological advances
• spill over
• SPF
• GIFT
• vaccination
• automation

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to acknowledge the review and suggestions on an earlier draft by Drs. Nathan Stone, Craig Tucker, and Jeonghwan Park. Errors or omissions are sole responsibilities of the authors.

Notes

¹ Extensive aquaculture systems rely solely on natural photosynthetic process for source of food.

² Removal of one or both eyestalks of a female shrimp to stimulate gonadal maturation and to achieve spawning in controlled environments.

³ Galveston systems separated algal rearing from shrimp larval rearing systems by culturing algae separately in small tanks under heavy aeration. This resulted in clearer larval rearing systems with higher stocking densities and larval survivals.

⁴ Ocean ranching can be defined as the artificial propagation of juvenile salmon for release into ocean basins to augment wild and subsistence fishery. Anderson (1985) provides details of positive economic benefits of Pacific salmon ranching while Liu et al. (2014) projects its negative impacts. Ocean ranching was viewed in the 1980s as the future of salmon production. However, the control over the entire production cycle achieved in salmon net pen production has proven to be superior in terms of sustained supply of salmon.

⁵ Quantity of fish (either wild-caught or non-edible cultured fish) that is required as feed input to produce 1 kg of edible farmed fish output.

⁶ Super male tilapias have two Y chromosomes instead of the usual Y and X chromosome thus producing only male progeny.