Fish farm woes: Set up body to handle food crises

Straits Times Forum 5 Jan 10;

I REFER to Sunday's report, 'Fish farms in west spared from plankton woes'. Reports of more than 1,000 dead fish washing up on Pasir Ris Beach first surfaced on Dec 29. The figure jumped to 200,000 on Jan 1.

The fish farmers detected the problem first on Dec 23 and knew it would get worse.

Some of the farmers banded together to come up with ideas to salvage the situation. Among them were the use of air pumps, lowering the nets further into the sea, feeding medicine to the fish, and finally, releasing fish into the sea.

However, it looks like roping in the fish farmers in the west, to help keep the fish in their netcages, was not one of the options considered.

In the second week of December, it was reported that the Government was concerned enough about Singapore's food resilience to set up a $5 million Food Fund under the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA). This would help diversify and increase the country's food sources via co-funding of projects.

Perhaps, more can be done in terms of a coordination body at the national level to address food crises.

For example, following the plankton bloom, such a body would have been able to explore all options and carry them out fast, thereby reducing the loss - which came to 300,000 fish worth $2.7 million.

When time is of the essence, a coordination body could rally the support of seafood restaurants across the island to keep the tiger garoupas in their tanks. The logistics of such a move cannot be managed by a few affected farmers.

Going forward, an alert system, much like the Pollutant Standards Index to track the haze, should be put in place in the waters designated for fish farming.

It would be more cost-effective to have a coordination body to implement such a system with sensors in place at strategic points in the sea to monitor the oxygen levels. The fish farmers would then be alerted to potential dangers and recovery actions can be coordinated.

Food resilience is more than just investments in modern technology for intensive farming. It includes a systems approach to the farming cluster at the national level. With the unusual global weather patterns, this has become urgent. Let us get this in place before more of our fish farmers give up, and with this, sink all hope of meeting the target of 15 per cent locally produced fish.

Liu Fook Thim