19/11/2015: Middle East & Central Asia Aquaculture 2015, December 14-16, 2015, Olympic Hotel, Tehran, Iran

This First Middle East and Central Asia Aquaculture Conference has the theme: 'Tapping New Markets in Aquaculture'. It includes several events. Asian Pacific Aquaculture 2015 is the annual meeting of the Asian Pacific Chapter of the World Aquaculture Society.  The Middle East Aquaculture forum is the second of its kind in the region and focuses on industry presentations. The International Shrimp Symposium 2015 will be part of this event.

The conference will also focus on marine fish, shrimp, sturgeon, trout and offshore mariculture. MECAA15 also includes an International Aquaculture Exhibition. MECAA15 is hosted by the Iranian Fisheries Research Organisation, December 14-16, 2015.

More info on www.was.org and www.meaf.ae or email info@meaf.ae.

More below:
 
Status of Aquaculture in Iran 

by Homayoun Hosseinzadeh Sahafi, Iranian Fisheries Science Research Institute, Agricultural Research and Education Organization (AREZO),Tehran, Iran

With reference to the global precedence of 2000 years of fish farming, this activity began in Iran with the breeding of sturgeon and rainbow trout in 1922 and 1959, respectively.

Initial efforts in the 1970s were directed towards the development of hatchery techniques for fingerling production for valuable Caspian Sea species, such as sturgeon and rutilus (Rutilus frisi kutum). This approach was also adopted for other indigenous species, rainbow trout and chinese carp, the latter of which have now become the major species for freshwater aquaculture. The contribution of aquaculture to fishery production has progressively increased from an initial production of 3219 tonnes in 1978 (1% of total fishery production) to 65000 tonnes by 1996 (13% of total fishery production). Fish production through aquaculture reached 325000 tons in 2013.
    

Table1: Number of fish fingerlings released (typical species) in 2003 and 2013 in the Iranian reach of the Caspian Sea

Development of aquaculture has since been expanded to cover most of the 25 provinces in the country, with coastal aquaculture being introduced recently for the production of high quality marine products. In order to increase the shrimp population in the Persian Gulf, the aquaculture department started a joint project with UNDP in Hormozgan province, which established a pilot hatchery for shrimp production in 1987, resulting in the production of about 1240 million post-larvae (PL) and 13000 tonnes of shrimp in 2013.

Warm-water fish ponds (in farms varying between 2 and 100 hectares) are found all over the country, but the majority of them are located in Gilan and Mazandaran provinces in the north, and Khouzestan province in the south inland. Watercourses in these areas (0.5 million of 5 million hectares) including reservoirs, lagoons, natural water bodies and dam lakes were the sites of fish fingerling releases. Coldwater farms are distributed in the eight provinces of West Azerbaijan, Fars, Tehran, Golestan, Mazandaran, Zanjan, Kohgiluyeh-Boyer Ahmad and Chaharmahal Bakhtiari. Trout production began in 1959 and total production was about 23140 tonnes in 2003, increasing to 14400 tonnes in 2013.

In order to enhance the Caspian Sea fisheries, inland water bodies and aquaculture activities, artificial breeding of various fish species was seriously considered. Fingerling production increased by 2003 and 2013 to 507 million and 1038.5 million respectively. It seems that the production of aquaculture will reach 400,000 tonnes/year by the end of the five-year development plan in 2015. In this regard, according to Fisheries Organisation statistics, the increase in Iran's fisheries output over the last decade is shown in table 1. In order to achieve sustainability in aquaculture and rural development, the government has provided such things as credit, infrastructure, training and technical assistance. Moreover, Iran's fisheries are well prepared for cooperation with other countries, and international and regional agencies experienced in these fields.

E.mail: h_hosseinzadeh@ifro.ir

Visit Iran's International Sturgeon Research institute HERE.  

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