With ever increasing pressure on our wild fisheries, and a majority of commercial species classified fully or over exploited, it's only a matter of time before commercial fishing will no longer be able to provide for the insatiable world demand for seafood.

Australia generally has a small fishery sector, and despite having the third largest fishing zone in the world, ranks around 55th in production. Australia and indeed global wild fisheries production is static or declining, and to make up market shortfalls, significant emphasis has been placed on aquaculture - the commercial farming of fish, molluscs, crustaceans and aquatic plants.

Aquaculture is a rapidly developing industry and was worth almost $750 million to the Australian economy in the 2002/2003 production year, representing approximately 30% of total Australian fisheries production. Aquaculture worldwide has a growth rate of 11% per year and is worth an estimated $US56.5 billion dollars.

Aquaculture in NSW

The industry in NSW is dominated by oyster farming, and this is also the oldest aquaculture industry in the state. Worth around $38 million annually, culture is dominated by the Sydney rock oyster.

In the land-based sector, prawn farming is the most valuable aquaculture industry, worth in excess of $4 million annually, producing approximately 400t of prawns for market.

Other emerging sectors include the silver perch industry, which has quickly become the most valuable freshwater aquaculture species in NSW. It's expected this industry will continue to expand at a rapid rate in the future.

Other important species to NSW aquaculture include trout, snapper, mussels, yabbies, barramundi, Murray cod, and aquarium species.

There's also a well-developed freshwater finfish hatchery sector, worth more than $2 million annually.

The role of NSW DPI

NSW DPI manages aquaculture in this state, and it's our job to ensure the industry develops in a sustainable manner. We've set in place a number of policies and guidelines to ensure all farming practices are environmentally sustainable, and the industry has a healthy future.

We also conduct research into aquaculture, and we've pioneered the way for the farming of a number of species in this state, including silver perch, snapper, mulloway, pearl oysters, oysters etc.

We're also involved in a number of additional aquaculture related projects, such as aquaculture diet formulation, hatchery techniques and breeding for restocking purposes, and ranching techniques for abalone.