Pilot kingfish RAS farm presents huge potential for New Zealand’s Northland region

A pilot commercial kingfish (Yellowtail amberjack) aquaculture venture is going to be built New Zealand's largest marine research facility. The on-land aquaculture venture will be located at Bream Bay near Whangārei and will be used to look into how a commercial venture of its type could be modelled to help others around New Zealand set up similar farms.

 

Image credit: Taso Viglas on FLickr
(CC BY 2.0)

The farm will be setup seaside at the 8.4 hectare National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa) marine farming research facility on Ruakākā north beach, south of Whangārei. At this site NIWA has been developing aquaculture for almost 20 years.

The $20 million NZD ($12.5 million USD) project will be jointly funded between the government's provincial Growth Fund ($6 million NZD), NIWA ($7.84 million NZD), and Northland Regional Council ($6 million NZD).

New Zealand's Regional Economic Development Minister, Shane Jones commented, 'On-land kingfish production had come a long way since his iwi (New Zealand Native Māori Tribe) made a failed attempt to set up a land-based venture of this time on the shores of the Far North's Parengarenga Harbour more than a decade ago. If successful, the new pilot will be a milestone in New Zealand's kingfish aquaculture industry development.'

The pilot is for the most part a self-contained farm which depends on the supply of Bream Bay seawater, recycling the majority of the water in its recirculating system. It has been suggested that the farm could produce as much as 600 tonnes of kingfish.

The Aquaculturists

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