Fish farming

Barramundi farm draws interest

By Patrick Matbob

 

The launching of Papua New Guinea’s first village-based commercial barramundi farm last month has created considerable interest amongst the local people.

Set in the idyllic northern coastal village of Sarang in Madang province, the barramundi farm is promising business opportunities and a new source of income for the villagers.

Basically relying on income from copra and cocoa, the coastal people have been hard hit in the last few years because of poor world prices for copra and the collapse of the country’s Copra Marketing Board.

The promising new venture has come this far because of the hard work, expertise and resources of marine biologist and aquaculturist, Ian Middleton. Ian is a member of the famed Middleton family of Karkar Island in Madang who made their fortunes in copra and cocoa since Ian’s grandfather Maxwell first came to the province in 1921. Ian studied the barramundi at a post graduate level and invested nearly half million kina to set up the Bismark Barramundi (PNG) Ltd 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 and the foremost estuarine species targeted by both commercial and recreational fishermen throughout Australasia,” he said.

“Favoured in many restaurants and resorts the barramundi provides a high quality, fresh fish alternative to increasing frozen fish imports into PNG.”

Bismark Barramundi has promoted and developed the ocean cage production of barramundi on a village level, adopting the “Family Farmer” program, an initiative for 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 giving the required 100, 000 fish capacity to target large export markets.

The Sarang village venture was launched in a colourful ceremony by the Governor of Madang, Stahl Musa. The Madang government has set aside K160, 000 (US$41,000) for the project especially to assist the coastal villages to set up their own farms because the project has showed a lot of promise.

Ian Middleton told the villagers that although coconut and cocoa have traditionally been their main source 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 their ocean resources which was abundantly available and currently been exploited by foreign fishing vessels.

He told the villagers to concentrate on growing the fish and let him worry about the breeding and markets for their product.

He that said so far the export market in Queensland alone would be able to cater for 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 and give it solid exporting base.

For the villagers, the venture has created excitement and expectations.

John Magor, a Sarang village elder, said they were very happy with this new project and they would try their best to make it a success for coming generations.

He said this project promises to 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.”

Ian Middleton teamed up with Chris O’Keefe in November, 1998 to develop the barramundi farm.

He said Mr O’Keefe brought to PNG 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 which were utilised to train local Papua New Guineans. Since Mr O’Keefe’s departure in early 2001, Bismark Barramundi is proud to have two locals that have become successful Hatchery and Pontoon Managers.

The best possible barramundi broodstock were collected from the Kikori and Galley Reach River systems in the south of PNG and flown to Madang and trucked to the hatchery. A quarterly spawning cycle has been adopted, followed by larval culture and eventual transfer to ocean based cages within a nursery pontoon in Sarang harbour. The final stage of the production cycle sees fingerlings transferred to the ocean side 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, says Mr Middleton, 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 & gutted) on the domestic market but 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 PNG to commercially exploit and benefit from their vast ocean resources.

Ends.