Aquaculture
Village-Level Aquaculture
A PNG Entrepreneur Is Bringing Fresh Fish To Overseas Markets
The launching of Papua New Guinea’s first village-based commercial barramundi farm has created considerable interest among the local people. Set in the northern coastal village of Sarang in Madang province, the barramundi farm is promising business opportunities and a new source of income for the villagers.
Relying on income from copra and cocoa, the coastal people have been hard hit in the past few years, because of poor world copra prices and the collapse of the country’s Copra Marketing Board.
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Ian studied the barramundi and invested nearly 500,000 kina to set up the Bismark Barramundi Ltd., a company whose mission is to breed and culture fish commercially at the family’s Dylup plantation near Sarang.
"After tilapia and carp, the barramundi is arguably the best-known tropical finfish cultured anywhere in the world," Middleton says. "It is the foremost estuarine species targeted by both commercial and recreational fishermen throughout Australasia.
"Favored in many restaurants and resorts, the barramundi provides a high-quality, fresh-fish alternative to the in-creasing frozen-fish imports into PNG." Bismark Barramundi has promoted and developed the ocean-cage production of barramundi on a village level, adopting a "family farmer" strategy that promotes local small-business development.
The program allows a village, clan or family group to operate and eventually own floating ocean pontoons with a maximum cage capacity of 20,000 barramundi. The company has deployed pontoons funded by the Canadian government, Madang provincial government and Asian Development Bank. The European Union, AusAid and British American Tobacco have also shown interest. Five pontoons will be deployed by the end of this year, yielding the 100,000 fish required to target large export markets.
The Sarang village venture was launched in a colorful ceremony by the governor of Madang, Stahl Musa. The Madang government has set aside K160,000 (US$41,000) for the project to assist coastal villages set up their own farms, because the project has shown a lot of promise. Middleton told villagers that, although coconut and cocoa have traditionally been their main sources of income, depressed world prices and the mismanagement of the industry has seriously affected them. He said it was time for the people to turn to the ocean resources that were abundantly available—and currently being exploited almost exclusively by foreign fishing vessels.
Middleton encouraged villagers to concentrate on growing the fish while he worried about the breeding and the marketing of their product.
Thus far the export market in Queensland alone will be able to purchase all the barramundi produced in Madang. Australian executives from the Sizzler chain of restaurants in Queensland visited the venture early this year and were pleased with what they saw. They may sign up to buy filleted barramundi exclusively from the Madang project. This deal would give the operation a solid exporting base.
For the villagers, the venture has created excitement and expectations. John Magor, a Sarang village elder, says they are very happy with the new project and they would try their best to make it a success for the coming generations. Magor hopes this project will bring services and facilities that the village has never had before. "We know that when the fish are ready to be sold we will make money, and the village will benefit." Middleton teamed up with Chris O’Keefe in November 1998, to develop the barramundi farm.
He said O’Keefe brought to Papua New Guinea a wealth of practical, hands-on experience and the advantage of being part of a rapidly growing Queensland industry, including the latest breeding, feeding and production techniques. These were utilized to train Papua New Guineans. Since O’Keefe’s departure in early 2001, Bismark Barramundi is proud to have two locals who have become successful hatchery and pontoon managers.
The best possible barramundi brood stock were collected from the Kikori and Galley Reach River systems in the south of PNG. A quarterly spawning cycle has been adopted, followed by larval culture and eventual transfer to ocean-based cages within a nursery pontoon in Sarang Harbor. The final stage of the production cycle sees fingerlings transferred to the oceanside ponds to grow out fresh, market-size fish.
A trial production run of 25,000 fish was completed and sold in 2000. Bismark Barramundi expects to have 100,000 fish in production by Christmas this year and be producing 200,000 fish per annum by the end of 2004. The deep, pristine waters of the Bismark Sea and uniform tropical climate of Madang will be a trademark for the company’s success, Middleton thinks, with water quality and constant temperature being integral to the success of any aquaculture venture. Bismark Barramundi currently supplies fresh, whole-plate and kilo-size fish (gilled and gutted) on the domestic market and Australian and Asian export markets for fillets will be sought later this year.
With the backing of Bismark Barramundi, the future looks promising for the coastal people of Madang and Papua New Guinea to commercially exploit and benefit from their vast ocean resources.
