Tan Yit Wee: AVA aquaculturist

Lucky man of the sea
Having to deal with fish as part of his job is a dream come true for aquaculturist Tan Yit Wee
sandra leong Straits Times 10 May 10;

Perched precariously on the edge of a speedboat hurtling through the Strait of Johor, marine aquaculturist Tan Yit Wee is making you ponder on some ominous food scenarios.

In a country where food and flavours are in abundance, running low on staple fish such as grouper and sea bass seems implausible. It is a nightmare scenario that cannot possibly become a reality in Singaporeans' lifetimes. Or can it?

The unassuming 36-year-old thinks so. He says adamantly, above the roar of the engine: 'At the rate that the world population is harvesting fish, we might not be seeing 'sea' fish in the next 50 years.'

He fires off some facts in earnest. Capture fishing, or fishing in naturally occurring environments, is still commonplace. But statistics are beginning to show that these catches have reached a plateau.

There are limits to natural fish supply, he says persuasively, and smart, sustainable farming is the only way forward.

Mr Tan is one of the Agri-food & Veterinary Authority's (AVA) 'fish men', part of a team of 15 marine aquaculturists tasked to work with 106 fish farms here to ensure that Singaporeans will never suffer from a scarcity of fish - and other types of seafood - on their dinner tables.

'I have two passions. Fish and cars. I chose fish,' he says. The motorhead in him has taken a backseat since he married his wife Dawn, a 33-year-old teacher, and fathered two children - three-year- old Luke and one-year-old Beth.

'I love fast cars. I used to drive up to Sepang with my friends. But I drive an MPV now,' he says wryly, referring to his Citroen Grand Picasso.

Now firmly entrenched in his other love, he graduated from the National University of Singapore with a bachelor's degree majoring in zoology. He later pursued a master's in aquaculture at Stirling University in Scotland and has been with the AVA for about 10 years.

His love for the sea was sparked at a young age. Till the age of five, he lived near the sea in Mersing, visiting kelongs regularly. His dad worked in the timber industry in Terengganu but the rest of the family set up home in Mersing to be closer to Singapore.

In school, he was in the canoeing and dragonboating teams. After taking up recreational fishing in his army days, he became fascinated with the study of fish, reading up as much as he could.

He says that unlike the mom-and- pop fishing businesses of yore, where lines and nets are left to the whims of luck and nature, aquaculture is an exact science. It is about researching and implementing farming practices that score maximum yield with minimum impact on socio- economic and environmental factors.

And he has been busy of late. As part of a mission to make Singapore's food fish supply more sustainable, AVA has rolled out plans to increase local fish production from 4 to 15 per cent.

Much of these efforts will revolve around hard science, such as the invention of better farming technologies. But there is also the soft science aspect, which requires Mr Tan - equal parts civil servant, sustainability advocate and man of the sea - to know and feel the ground. Or the waters, for that matter.

He says: 'The most important thing is coming out, getting in touch with the farmers, knowing what they want and need so we can help them. It's difficult to just call them as they might not get reception. Their phones roam to Indonesian networks.

'Our workload has increased but it's good,' he says of the AVA initiative. 'Ultimately, we are still eating fish, right?'

Although AVA allows its staff relatively flexible work hours, he and his colleagues are also the go-to team for farming disasters. 'We are on call 24 hours for any problem that might occur. Like if a kelong catches fire at 1am, we are there.'

With the sun bearing down on him, he looks the very anthithesis of the desk-bound bureaucrat. Tanned and burly, he is dressed in a short-sleeved shirt and bermudas and sports surfer-style shades.

We are en route to FC28W, a marine farm culturing such fish as tilapia and sea bass. It is one of many floating fish farms on the western part of the Strait of Johor, an idyllic body of water that runs between Singapore and the southernmost Malaysian state.

This is as far away from the hustle and bustle of urban Singapore as you can get. The day began at 10am, from a point known as 'the end of Lim Chu Kang Road', a tiny jetty that serves as the gateway to coastal fish farms in the north.

'Many Singaporeans don't even know the presence of these farms,' he laments. Other farming spots include the waters off Pasir Ris and near Pulau Ubin, Pulau Tekong and Pulau Senang.

The day also began gingerly, with Mr Tan nursing a sore back from a bad fall in his home. 'Brokeback mountain lah,' he quips, struggling to lift a bulky backpack brimming with equipment.

Despite the pain, work has to be done. The boat chugs to a stop as it approaches the farm, a cluster of wooden structures bobbing along with the warm current.

One of them is a makeshift office and living quarters, complete with desk, beds, TV and solar-powered radio blaring golden oldies from a Malaysian radio station.

'Careful,' he reminds you as you clamber out of the boat. He has fallen into the water countless times in the course of work. 'I've been through many mobile phones,' he says with a sigh.

Cultivating fish and relationships

Farmer Yeo King Kwee, better known to Mr Tan as Kwee, is waiting. An amiable man with a soft spot for tilapia, he began working with the AVA 10 years ago to adapt this freshwater species to saltwater conditions.

It worked. 'We're finally able to mass-produce this fish,' he says. Another coup is the taste of the fish. 'Marine tilapia won't have that muddy taste you get in freshwater ones,' he claims.

The sea bass are also of special interest to Mr Tan. Dubbed 'super sea bass', they are grown from selectively bred fingerlings that grow up to 15 per cent faster than normal ones.

He spends some time observing the fish for unusual swimming patterns and behaviour before coaxing a few out of their octagonal floating cages. He puts them into a pail to be weighed and measured, then drops a few globules of colourless anaesthetic fluid in. 'They will knock out soon,' he says conspiratorially.

True enough, their darting movements slow after about five minutes. He lays a drowsy sea bass out on a wet towel against a sampling ruler but is careful not to startle or hurt the creature.

'Fish are living organisms too,' says the marine lover quietly. 'They feel pain. They have memories too. When we tap on the cage during feeding time, they come. They remember the cues.'

He counts himself an ethical eater of sorts. 'I don't crave sharksfin. We have so many other types of food to eat.

'And if we go fishing and catch fish that are bigger, we know it's brood stock (sexually mature fish used for breeding) and we will let them go.'

Both men are pleased with the rate of growth so far. 'Last week, they were about 3 to 4 inches. Today, 41/2 to 5 inches,' reports Mr Tan with a beam.

He also peeks under the fish's gills for signs of irritation or parasites. Disease and disaster, he says, are the two worst things that can hit fish farmers.

Farming, adds Mr Yeo, is a 'calculated risk'. There is no guarantee of success but there is much to be reaped.

Indeed, a farm like his can harvest up to 6 tonnes of fish a month. And to keep the production of the fish at an optimum level - a survival rate of above 70 per cent is ideal - a host of factors must be in place to keep the farming environment at its most conducive.

Water samples need to be collected, labelled and analysed. Mr Tan lowers an electronic device called a digital multimeter into the water. It will tell if there is enough dissolved oxygen - DO in marine-speak - and if the temperature is right to keep the fish healthy and happy.

The DO reading is a bit low but there is no great cause for concern. He tells Mr Yeo to have some aeration equipment on standby, 'just in case'.

He tests the water's salinity with a refractometer, a hand-held optical device that checks the concentration of salt water. Peering into it, he gives the thumbs- up. 'It's often a double-edged sword for farmers because different fish thrive at different levels of salinity,' he says.

A separate water sample will also be sent to the AVA laboratory at Sembawang Research Station to check for plankton - an organism that, if left to bloom, can affect some species of fish.

Take the case of the Pasir Ris and Ubin farms last year, where a plankton bloom wiped out fish stock. He recalls: 'It was very sad. I saw people who had not harvested for two years lose their fish. Money is one thing but it was also their blood and sweat that went down the drain.

'Many of us went down to help them clear dead fish to encourage them to carry on. We worked for weeks through the new year, even over weekends.'

There is also the question of predators. Herons and egrets from the nearby Sungei Buloh wetlands circle the farm but do not get close enough to attack because the cages are covered with nets.

But when clearing the nets that surround his farm the day before, Mr Yeo nabbed a barracuda that had attempted to breach his defences.

The fish in question - 0.5m long and sporting dagger-like teeth - lies stiff in a styrofoam box in his open-air office. 'I'm going to sell it at the market,' he quips.

The next stop is a mussel farm a little farther east, FC2W.

This visit is a more personal one. Mr Lim Sim Guan, a 43-year-old farmer who lives on the premises with his father, is suffering from some stomach pains. MrTan is keen to check in on him.

Indeed, there is a sense of camaraderie among those in the fish-farming community. 'I called Ah Guan last weekend and he wasn't feeling well, so I thought I'd pay him a visit. Everybody on the farms here, we are all like family. During Chinese New Year, I visit to give my blessings.

'There's a lot of personal touch required in this job. Once you earn the farmers' trust, they welcome you any time,' he adds.

Thankfully, Mr Lim, a quiet man with a weather-beaten mien, is doing better.

The farm's managing director, Mr Malcolm Ong, 47, has bought a late lunch of chicken buns for his visitors.

We take refuge from the scorching afternoon sun in Mr Lim's floating home, a cosy set-up of rattan chairs surrounded by potted banana trees. The smell of a stir-fry wafts from the kitchen as the men take a break to shoot the breeze.

'Life is different here, isn't it?' asks Mr Ong, leaning back into his chair. Farms on this part of the Strait of Johor are lucky, he says. Few large vessels pass through the channel and so the waters are usually calm and quiet.

But this lull is temporary. There will be a late afternoon harvest of mussels, to be delivered to a customer at 7pm.

Mr Tan wants to check on the shellfish which grow - by the millions - on ropes lowered into the sea. The spats, which refer to molluscs in their larval stage, come from the wild. 'No need to buy,' says Mr Ong. 'They come from nature and attach themselves to any surface.'

Ignoring Mr Ong's pleas to 'watch your back', Mr Tan hauls up a heavy load of mussels. They look healthy, densely packed and gleaming in the sun.

Despite their relatively fuss-free propagation, farmers must still watch the DO levels in the waters here. 'The worry for mussels is that if some of them die suddenly, everyone else will be affected because they grow very close to each other. You will lose a whole bunch,' he says.

Another concern is that the supply of mussels here is also finite. 'Eight to 10 years ago, the mussels here were much more abundant,' says Mr Ong. The key is to make hay while the sun shines.

But today has been a good day, says Mr Tan. The farms are in good shape. 'Water is okay, everything is all right.'

With samples in tow and relations intact, it is time to return to his Sembawang office. As exciting as days out in the sun are, 50 per cent of his job is still paperwork-related.

But his mind will likely be out at sea. 'It's an occupational hazard. If it's rainy in the morning, sunny in the afternoon, and with the right tide, plankton will bloom and I will start worrying.'

The samples collected come back from the laboratory later in the day. Some plankton was found, but mainly beneficial species of the organism, he says.

Work winds down around 6pm, leaving the rest of the day for family at his Potong Pasir home. His son Luke, he says proudly, is already a budding fisherman.

'He's a bit too young to go fishing with me but he watches fishing-related shows on TV, and knows about rods and lines. And he can swim.'

He is tired but happy. 'When you are doing things you like, it doesn't seem like going to work. When people ask me, 'Are you going to work?'. I say, 'No, I'm not.'

'I'm lucky.'