Trends and Prospects of Chinese Inland Aquaculture
Zhongjie LI Institute of Hydrobiology
Chinese Academy of Sciences
International Workshop on Sustainability Science 4-5 March 2015, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
for SDGs
Fan Li (范蠡)《On Pisciculture》 Edited again in 1986, in Chinese , English, Japanese, Russian, French ,Spanish
China is the country with the longest history of aquaculture in the world. Its earliest record traces back 2500 years. Fan Li wrote the first book on fish farming ,《On Pisciculture》 in 5th century B.C.
About 600 years ago, the government set up the special department for collected tax from the inland fisheries in the Yangtze basin area.
Brief Introduction of inland aquaculture history in China
Pioneer record of fishery taxation
But before 1950s, almost of the inland fishery production come from the catch fishing.
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1960s Success of artificial propagation in the major carps, e.g. grass carp, silver carp, bighead carp etc. A great milestone for the Chinese aquaculture.
1970s Large scale stocking major carps in ponds, lakes and reservoirs.
1980s Lake and reservoir net-pen and cage cultivation. Open the market.
1990s In addition to the carps, crab, perch, turtle, frog, shellfish and other species been cultivated in aquaculture systems.
2000s Stocking more than 30 fishery species, and had developed many new culture models.
Brief Introduction of inland aquaculture history in China
Traditional aquaculture species- major carps
grass carp, silver carp, bighead carp, black carp, common carp, etc
Hypophthalmichthys molitrix
Aristichthys nobilis
Ctenopharyngodon idella
Cyprinus carpio
Rice field eel
Snakehead
Snout brean
Mandadrin fish
Yellow catfish Long-snout catfish Rivercrub
Puffer fish
New culture species
Pond culture
Pearl-shell and fish culture
Yellow eel culture system
Indoor Aquaculture systems
Culture-based fisheries — Lake and reservoir fisheries
Net-cage culture Crab stocking
Major carps stocking
Freshwater aquaculture is increasing very fast in China
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Capture AquacultureX 10000 MT
2/3 of world freshwater aquaculture production
Supply 97% Chinese food fish
11 millions people working on inland fisheries
1980s
2015/3/10
Freshwater aquaculture in the global context
% GlobalFwAqP to Global Total
% ChinaFwAqP to Global FwAqP
(based on FAO FishStat J, 2014)
Globally, over the years since aquaculture became a significant contributor to the food fish basket, freshwater aquaculture has played and continues to play a dominant role.
China predominate global freshwater aquaculture production, and its contribution to the latter has continued to increase.
2015/3/10
Centres of freshwater aquaculture within China
Production trends
Average production per year for each five-year period (1981-2010)
The top eight freshwater aquaculture-producing provinces accounted for over 82% of the national production.
All these provinces lie approximately between 110 and 120 ° E and 19 and 35 ° N, well within the tropical and subtropical belt
The provinces in the Yangtze River Basin accounted for 66% of the production.
19% Freshwater
40% Population
81% Freshwater
60％ Population
Distribution of population, freshwater resources and inland fisheries in Chinese mainland
95%Freshwater fish
production
(Yangtze and Zhujiang
River Basins)
2015/3/10
Forms of freshwater aquaculture
(a) Average area and (b) average production over 5-year periods from 1981 to 2010 of the freshwater environmental type.
Pond
Lake
Reservoir
River
Paddy
Other
Pond
Lake
Reservoir
River Paddy
Other
Pond aquaculture is the most predominant. In reservoirs, lakes and rivers, the commonest aquaculture practice in China is
artificial fishery stocking and the net pen and cage culture. Paddy field aquaculture has been gradually adopted for the culture of high-valued
species such as crayfish and mitten crab.
2015/3/10
Trends in production of cyprinid species and the per cent contribution to the
total freshwater aquaculture production in China
The trends in production of the six major cyprinid species
contributing to freshwater aquaculture production
The per cent contribution of cyprinids to total freshwater aquaculture production in China for this period decreased from 73.9 to 64.9.
Among these, it is evident that grass carp (3 492 585 – 4 781 698 t) was the most predominant, followed by silver carp, common carp, bighead carp, crucian carp and black carp in that order.
Black carp
Grass carp
Silver carp
Big head carp
Common carp
Crucian carp
2015/3/10
Apart from the cyprinids, there are a number finfish species and/or species groups that contribute (in excess of 25 000 t/year) to freshwater aquaculture production in China. Of this group, the most predominant is the cichlid fish, alien to Asia, the Nile tilapia.
Also importantly, all of these species/species groups have shown a consistent increase in production in the last decade, perhaps with the exception of the alien species channel catfish which has tended to plateau in the last few years.
Notably, this group of fish includes mostly omnivores and strict carnivores, especially snakehead and mandarin fish.
Production trends of major species/species groups contributing to
freshwater aquaculture production in China
Channel catfish
Yellow catfish
Mandarin fish
Loach
Catfish
Snakehead
Bass
Paddy eel
Eel
Nile tilapia
Bream
Pirapatinga
2015/3/10
Chinese mitten crab
Crayfish
Shrimp
%
Trends in production of the three major crustacean species and the
per cent contribution to total production
The production of these three crustaceans increased from 715 941 t in 2003 to 1 959 948 t in 2012, and the corresponding contribution to freshwater aquaculture production increased from 4.0 to 7.4%.
2015/3/10
Culture techniques/systems
The culture and/or the farming techniques in freshwater aquaculture in China are very diverse and wide ranging. An attempt is made to capture and summarize the range of diversity in the culture systems that operate in freshwaters in China:
Examples of overall production of different species/species groups in different culture systems in China
There are differences in the productivity of polyculture systems using different species combinations.
170 cyprinid species including almost of the feeding habits .
Importantly, all carp polyculture systems tended to be very productive often averaging over 10 t/ha.
Culture-based fisheries
Chinese culture-based fisheries in lakes and reservoirs（1981-2012）
CBF production from reservoirs has shown a regular increase through the years 118705t to 3337690t (1981-2012) ，corresponding to unit productions of 62kg/ha to 1746 kg/ha (1981-2012), increased 27 times.
Meanwhile，CBF production from lakes has shown a regular increase through the years 67568t to 1614977t，corresponding to unit productions of 91kg/ha to 1576kg/ha, increased 16 times.
reservoir
lake
2015/3/10
Overall, the market price of freshwater aquaculture produce has increased from 8000 RMB/t in 2003 to 15 000 RMB/t in 2012, almost doubling in a decade.
This overall increase in commodity price could be at least partially impacted by the gradual increase in the proportionate contribution of high-valued commodities such as mandarin fish, crayfish, mitten crab and the like to freshwater aquaculture production.
Marketing
Trends in changes in mean value in RMB per ton of freshwater aquaculture produce 2003–2012
2015/3/10
Emerging issues on freshwater aquaculture
The major changes that are likely to occur in freshwater aquaculture in China will be associated with minimizing environmental perturbations arising from aquaculture practices.
• These will necessarily include use of better feeds; coupled with better feeding management practices such as avoiding over feeding.
• Freshwater aquaculture in China also utilizes many models incorporating principles of polyculture; not only as a means of increasing productivity but improving the utilization of feed resources, allochthonous and autochthonous, which in turn reduces nutrient content in the effluent.
2015/3/10
With increasing living standards and a growing middle class in the developing world and in China that generally has an appetite for new food varieties, one could expect a change in the species profile of cultured species;
• perhaps significant increase in carnivorous species, which often are purported to have a better taste and rarities like puffer fish.
• In spite of such changes, the backbone of Chinese freshwater aquaculture is likely to be the polyculture of carp.
All strategies that will come into being in respect of freshwater aquaculture development in the foreseeable future in China, will have to take into account climatic changes and impacts thereof on aquaculture.
• However, there is a paucity of studies on climate-change impacts on freshwater aquaculture per se in China.
• There is a need to encourage work on climate-change impacts on freshwater farming systems in China, and consequently to develop mitigating and adaptive strategies.
2015/3/10
The steps that are being taken, as directed by the government are likely to impact on freshwater aquaculture production, but adoption of these measures will likely to make the practices sustainable in the long term. Among the measures that are being gradually implemented are as follows:
• Strict regulation of the scale of cage culture, pen culture and culture-based fisheries operations in selected lakes, reservoirs and rivers.
• Encourage ecologically favourable aquaculture practices, for example transplanting macrophyte in mitten crab culture systems to maintain water quality.
• Reduce the volumes and frequencies of water exchange in pond.
• Encourage integrated aquaculture and agriculture farming systems which can make comprehensive use of resources and reduce effluent discharge
• Advocate effective treatment of aquafarm effluent and encourage recycling of effluent and recirculating farming systems.
• Improved feeds and feed management that effectively reduces waste output without compromising growth and production.
Possible technical ways of achieving sustainability
Thank you!
Zhongjie LI
Institute of Hydrobiology,CAS
Tel/Fax: +86 27 68780063
http://www.ihb.ac.cn
e.g. Rice-fish Culture model
The changes that have taken place in these farming systems, when the trend was to replace the traditional low valued aquatic species cultured with relatively higher valued species.
(A) An example of extensive culture of crayfish after the rice harvest; (B) Rice- crayfish culture, stocked in the channel, and after the rice harvest the area will also be stocked with crayfish.
New development : Rice – crayfish culture systems
e.g. Pen Culture model
A schematic of a large-scale rotational pen culture for mitten crab or grass crap in lakes
A pen is usually as large as 50–200 ha and all the pens in a lake take less than 1/4 of the lake. When a pen is moved to a new position, the previous site is left aside for restoring aquatic plants and the environment.
In this pattern, a fisherman should build a new pen, put mitten crab or grass carp fingerling into the pen, remove mitten crab or large fish from the pens at the end of the year, and move the pen to a new site after 1 or 2 years.
Restore the aquatic macrophytes and fish community, regulate the
fishing species and the catch limit.
e.g. Reconstruct the Watershed of Rain-flood Plain Ecosystem in Yangtze River Basin
