Fish farm woes: A wake-up call for Singapore

Straits Times Forum 8 Jan 09;

I REFER to recent reports about fish farms off Pasir Ris Beach and around Pulau Ubin being hit by plankton bloom. About 20 floating farms lost 300,000 fish worth about $2.7 million.

This should be a wake-up call for Singapore which depends on food imports to feed its growing population of 4.98 million. With climate change playing havoc with weather patterns, food producers will be increasingly at the mercy of nature's whims.

As recently as 2008, there was a shortage of rice. Leading rice-exporting countries Thailand and Vietnam became protective, banning exports. I hope Singaporeans have not forgotten this.

Singaporeans consume an estimated 100,000 tonnes of fish a year. Local foodfish aquaculture accounts for about 5 per cent of this. Yet this 5 per cent is what Singaporeans hunger for - tropical fish like grouper, seabass, snapper and lately, cobia.

Appetite for fish is growing too - especially saltwater fish, which is high in Omega 3 fatty acids and heart- friendly. Nutritionists often recommend a regular diet of fish over meat.

Singapore has limited space for fish farming as most of the sea is reserved for shipping lanes. Singapore fish farm industries are considered small with most struggling to remain viable.

Fish farming is capital-intensive and fraught with unknown risks. Grouper takes about 18 months to grow, seabass about one year, sea snapper about 11/2 years and cobia one year. Repeated injections of funds are needed to buy feed for the fish to grow.

Now, fish farmers off Pasir Ris and Pulau Ubin have woken up to find their prized fish stock wiped out, along with their much-anticipated income through sales for the upcoming Chinese New Year. After a year of hard work and thousands of dollars spent, they are left high and dry.

Right now, what they need is financial help, to tide over this difficult time. The Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) should reach out to the affected farmers and explore with other government agencies how to support them in their hour of need.

And, as suggested by Mr Liu Fook Thim on Tuesday ('Set up body to handle food crises'), AVA should also consider setting up an alert system to monitor oxygen levels in the sea and warn of potential dangers.

Winston Lee