Patagonian toothfish farming is going to be launched officially this week involving more than 2.2 million US dollars. The major portion of finance will come from Chile’s Scientific and Technological Development Fund (FONDEF) and the rest by the private companies involved in the project. The main purpose of the project is to develop farming technologies for Patagonian toothfish from wild breeding fish that have adapted to captive systems.
The project has time period of four years and is expected to produce a first batch of juveniles-weighing 5 grams each from incubated ovas in controlled systems. As the technology is currently incomplete Patagonian toothfish farming is yet to be considered suitable for world-class farming systems. It is fact that the project is a technological challenge and the first for the sector and for Chile. In 1996 the annual catch quota for Patagonian toothfish was totalled 7,500 tonnes. In 2005, however, it was reduced to 3.000 tonnes, the same amount announced for this year.
It was in 1992 when Chilean Patagonian toothfish landings registered a record 17.778 tonnes but since then, landings have been falling for a variety of reasons; including fleet migration, catch quota regulations, and resource over-exploitation. As a consequence, landings totalled 1,283 in 2004.
