Singapore fish farms to set up cooperative

Farms cash in on fish and chips
Planned cooperative is bringing new technology to an age-old profession
Neo Chai Chin Today Online 6 Nov 10;

From a distance, the handful of quaint wooden kelongs off Pasir Ris Beach look more a throwback to a rustic past than part of a modern revolution. But that they are.

Nearly a year after losing an estimated $4.5 million to plankton bloom off Pasir and Pulau Ubin, some fish farmers in Singapore have banded together to set up a cooperative. On their minds: A renaissance for local fisheries, of which consumers could be a part.

Plans afoot include tagging fish with groundbreaking radio frequency identification technology (RFID) to ensure quality, an early-warning system to monitor water conditions, and the search for land to build a state-of-the-art hatchery, storage and research facility.

What this means for consumers: An assurance of safety and quality, and competitive fish prices kept low when farmers buy in bulk the fry and equipment.

City-weary folks could also have a new weekend getaway - if plans to develop the farms to be more tourist-friendly bear fruit.

Led by E Marine Bay director Phillip Lim, the 18 founding members of the proposed Singapore Marine Aquaculture Cooperative (SMAC) submitted their application to the Registry of Cooperative Societies in June and are awaiting the green light.

By uniting, the 14 fish farm and their four partners (including an insurer and RFID technology provider ST LogiTrack) hope to support their peers who may have lost confidence after the plankton-bloom blow, fight for better operating conditions, and do research to grow know-how of fish-rearing technology.

"Fisheries should change - the attitude of farmers, design of farms. The concept of rearing fish should change," said Mr Lim, 47, a former diver who has been running his farm for five years.



'MAGIC' TECH TOOLS

There are 109 coastal fish farms in Singapore, mostly off the shores of Pasir Ris, Changi and Lim Chu Kang, which provide about 4 per cent of fish supply here. The industry's economic potential is far from realised, said Mr Lim, the SMAC's protem chief executive.

With traditional rearing methods, for instance, farmers can harvest fish only once or twice a year. With improved technology, monthly harvests are possible.

For instance, Mr Lim began using RFID three months ago on his farm, where he rears golden trevally, seabass, tiger grouper and red snapper. The rice-sized chips are implanted in fish when they are three to four months old.

With the chips, which cost "just under $5" each, information on each fish - how much it is fed, what it eats, how it has grown, the level of dissolved oxygen in the water when the fish was harvested (which affects quality) - can be tracked online. RFID can also help if the farmers export their fish overseas, by assuring food safety and traceability.

Light is also a magic tool the farmers will employ. "If you turn on the light, the fish will be active. They treat it as 'daytime', and you can feed them (more)," said Mr Lim. A fish that might otherwise take nine months to harvest, could now take six or seven months.

Then, there is the early warning system to track water quality and hopefully prevent a repeat of last December's losses to the plankton bloom.

Mr Lim tested the system he developed earlier this year, and said the group hopes for Government funding to roll it out.

The Agri-food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) said it is still testing early warning systems at waters off Pasir Ris, Changi and Lim Chu Kang, and "seasonal fluctuations and variations in water conditions" should be taken into account.

The AVA has also linked farmers up with reputable fish fry suppliers to facilitate bulk buys, and provided technical advice among other things.



TRAINED FARMHANDS

The co-op hopes to secure a two-hectare plot behind Changi Sailing Club to build its hatchery, storage and research facility. The five-storey hatchery Mr Lim designed to produce fingerlings (young fish the length of a finger) could be the first of its kind in Asia, he said.

The SMAC - which has pumped in about $2 million in capital - hopes to offer credit to help farmers get started. It can supply the bulk-bought fingerlings for the farmer to rear, lending him their expertise and advice. Once the fish are harvested, the dividends, minus the cost of the fingerlings and management fee, will be shared with the farmer.

Manpower can also be trained and streamlined with the SMAC in place, said Ms Tang Kwai Leng, general manager of ST LogiTrack. "Farmhands to feed fish, clean nets, do manual work - all that can be centrally supplied and managed by the co-op," she said.

It's not just the industry and consumers who could benefit from SMAC's initiatives. It also intends to impart expertise to underprivileged youth, said fellow founding member Pastor Andrew Choo.

The co-op is finalising details of a marine biology programme, and the girls from the Andrew and Grace Home - which Pastor Choo founded - are set to be its pioneer beneficiaries. "Once the programme is finalised, we will invite other homes. We want to avail our expertise to underprivileged kids in Singapore," he said.

Rearing fish is 'more stressful than caring for a child'
by Neo Chai Chin
"Watch him 'sayang' the fish," Ms Tang Kwai Leng, general manager of ST LogiTrack, told this reporter on a recent visit to Mr Philip Lim's farm.

It is clear that rearing fish is about more than just a way to make profits for Mr Lim, who began running E Marine Bay five years ago after 25 years as a professional diver.

The 48-year-old was demonstrating how a radio frequency identification chip - supplied by ST LogiTrack - was implanted in a seabass.

As Mr Lim stroked the fish, which thrashed furiously inside the styrofoam box, it calmed under his seasoned touch. It didn't flinch when Mr Lim lifted it and flipped it on its side on a dry table to insert the chip, before returning it to the submerged net.

"That's why I can't live on the farm," joked Mr Lim. "It would be like having thousands of lives in my hands. It's even more stressful than caring for a child."

Incidentally, Mr Lim happens to keep an 80-kg "pet" grouper on the farm.

Running a fish farm does not come cheap - and returns take over a year to materialise.

For instance, a farm that aims to harvest 40 tonnes of fish would have to sink in about $3 million in start-up capital - and should the fish die from an event like plankton bloom, the losses could hit $7 million, according to Mr Lim.

It's no wonder it takes a certain hardy breed of person to run one of the fish farms off the shores of Pasir Ris, Changi and Lim Chu Kang, far away from the city bustle.

"When you live on the sea, you've got to help yourself," Mr Lim said.

Unfortunately, this sense of independence is also why some stick staunchly to traditional rearing methods.

Asked why only a fraction of the 109 fish farms have opted to join the proposed cooperative, Mr Lim said the hope is that more will come on board when they see the benefits it can offer.