Another Lucrative Export Option?

Manager of SODACAL, Régis Bador, and Jean-Charles Delafosse, a technician at the farm, got the idea when sea horses were found in the water pumped from the lagoon into the prawn ponds.

Sea horse farming...could be a lucrative business venture. Photo: Tuo Chinula.

When the pair started the operation in 2001, they found very little written information on sea horse farming. SODACAL is one of only four commercially-run sea horse farms in the world.

Delafosse had previous experience looking after sea horses in aquariums in France but none in capturing and breeding them. However, they didn't let this stop them and with advice from the Noumea Aquarium, the project got underway.

The sea horses are housed in a specially equipped renovated storage room at the prawn farm. To date, the farm has invested around three million CFP (US$29,000) in the operation set up in 2001. It's expecting a two million CFP subsidy from New Caledonia's Southern Province.

Sea horses live around four years and the advantage of buying ones bred in captivity is that you're guaranteed their age, Delafosse says. The farm sells them when they're six to nine months old. Breeding the species in captivity also helps protect it from overfishing in its natural environment. Sea horses captured in their natural environment have difficulty adapting to an artificial environment which causes high levels of stress and can lead to premature death, he says. Because they are social creatures and don't survive long on their own, the farm sells them in pairs. It's currently selling them at 4000 CFP (US$38) per pair on the local market.

"People are attracted to them because they are extremely calm creatures and have a relaxing effect in a home aquarium," Delafosse says.

Increasing the survival rate is important for the feasibility of the project, he says. Young sea horses born in their natural habitats have an extremely low survival rate. When they hatch, only one in one thousand survive. The farm is aiming for a 30 percent survival rate. "The first year we had the same survival rate as in the wild but last year we had a 10 percent increase."

To be profitable the farm needs to sell 12,000 sea horses a year which seems very ambitious from its current population of 17 breeding adults. However, they have a rapid reproduction rate. The males, which have a brood pouch in which the eggs develop, produce an average of 150 young ones each time they spawn and they can spawn ten times a year.

Although current production may seem slow, Delafosse says initially, once the farm reaches its projected survival rate, the problem is likely to be overproduction since it hasn't yet found a steady market. "We're still in the experimental phase. We don't yet know how much to produce as we're currently looking for markets."

The farm's first export trials have been successful and once it has an established market he's confident the operation will be profitable. As with many of New Caledonia's export sectors, the country's geographic isolation is a disadvantage, Delafosse says. "We're currently aiming for the Japanese market because of its accessibility. New Caledonia already has trade and tourism links with Japan and a well established transport infrastructure."

Another lucrative export option for sea horses is the Chinese medicine market. However, Delafosse says it demands enormous quantities and the Moindou farm would not be able to meet such expectations. Although Delafosse is passionate about sea horse farming, he says, the real reason for diversifying is a financial one. "If we have a bad year for prawns the sea horses will help balance the books."