The US company Sea Ark last year announced plans for its prawn farm in the Coega Industrial Development Zone (IDZ) in Eastern Cape. The company has already been running an abalone farm in the East London IDZ and Wild Coast Abalone at Haga Haga. Espandon Marine also runs a kob hatchery in the East London IDZ. The Eastern Cape Development Corporation (ECDC), the province’s economic development agency, recently completed a Strategic Environmental Assessment to identify sites conducive to sea based fish farming off the Eastern Cape coast so that it could look to bolstering the province’s aquaculture production.
The agency is looking forward for a huge expansion which means a 7 billion rand investment. There is no doubt that aquaculture has emerged as a boom industry around the globe, driven by declining harvest fisheries and growing demand which has resulted in approximately 47 percent of the world’s fish production being farmed.
According to Rhodes University professor of Ichthyology and industry expert Peter Britz the recent decline in the supply of traditional fishery products, such as hake and linefish, is driving up prices and making aquaculture increasingly attractive. He told that aquaculture products should become standard commodities and expected to see wild harvested fish an occasional delicacy at your fish counter over the next few years.
