WWW.WAS.ORG • WORLD AQUACULTURE • DECEMBER 2015 9 Indonesia — the Next Aquaculture Juggernaut Roy Palmer TOP. Intensive shrimp farming in Indonesia. BOTTOM. Checking feed trays in an intensively managed shrimp pond. Indonesia understands the enormous potential of the aquaculture sector to provide domestic nutrition and food security requirements as well as foreign exchange earnings from exports. Tuna (wild) and shrimp (wild and farmed) sectors are relatively consolidated and organized, but other sub-sectoxrs — basa, tilapia and seaweed — are in early stages of development. Indonesia is an archipelago with more than 17,000 islands and a coastline of about 95,000 km, with 25 percent of the population residing close to the country’s coast. The area that can potentially be used for aquaculture development is about 26 million ha and thus aquaculture plays an important role in reducing unemployment and providing livelihoods for people in rural areas. The FAO reported that, even in 2003, there were about 2.3 million households involved in aquaculture, representing around 40 percent of those employed in the fisheries sector. Some 60 percent of the nation’s 247 million inhabitants live on Java, which accounts for just 8 percent of the country’s land area. Indonesia’s coastal and marine sector, in particular the small-scale fisheries supported by coral reef ecosystems, is an important economic asset for the country as a whole and for the millions of poor fishing families that depend on it. While marine capture fisheries is the largest sector in terms of production volume, aquaculture has increased in importance in revenue during the past decade because of the increased production of high-value shrimp, much of which is exported to Indonesia’s major seafood markets — the US, the EU and Japan. Aquaculture in Indonesia is practiced in fresh, brackish and marine water using a variety of species, production facilities and methods. Freshwater aquaculture developed in the late 1970s, when there was a significant increase in production following the introduction of new farming technologies that contributed to the availability of hatchery-produced seed and the development of compound feed. Common carp, catfish (Clarias and Pangasius) and Nile tilapia are the most common species farmed in freshwater. Around 1978, brackishwater pond area increased significantly with the successful development of shrimp farming as a result of the eyestalk ablation technique and rapid growth of hatcheries. In South Sumatra and Lampung Provinces, brackishwater pond areas were expanded by the private sector to develop large-scale pond culture using a form of contract farming known as the Nucleus Estate System. Penaeid shrimp and milkfish are the common species. Mariculture has been the most recent development, dominated by groupers such as humpback grouper Cromileptes altivelis and brownmarbled grouper Epinephelus fuscoguttatus. Cage culture is used for grouper and rabbitfish, which are produced for live export. Seaweed (Eucheuma and Gracilaria) production is growing significantly and is important in alleviating poverty in poor fishing communities because seaweed is ready to harvest after 45 days. Seaweed production is an integral part of the Indonesian blue economy initiative and fisheries industrialization program. Seaweed production is taking place in 1.1 million ha of coastal areas. There are around 550 species of seaweed found locally, representing almost 50 percent of all global seaweed varieties. The Fisheries Ministry set a production target of 7.5 million t of seaweed for 2013, up 30 percent compared with the 5.2 million t produced in 2012. The Ministry’s target for 2014 was set at 10 million t. The government approach to sustainable fisheries development includes encouraging the growth of aquaculture to ease pressure on marine fisheries. Aquaculture is most developed in west, central and east Java, where the main output is shrimp. Aquaculture accounts for over 20 percent of Indonesia’s overall agricultural economy and over 3 percent of the nation’s GDP. The Indonesian government understands the importance of fish as a protein source in local diets and that fishery products are an important source of foreign exchange earnings. Indonesia’s three large traditional export markets (Japan, the United States and Europe) account for about 70 percent of the country’s total seafood exports. According to government figures, Indonesia’s seafood exports reached a record US$3.6 billion in 2012, up 56.5 percent compared with an export value of US$2.3 billion in 2007. Exports have increased because Indonesia has been one of the few shrimp exporting countries to avoid the dreaded EMS disease, no doubt due to previous experiences and lessons learned with white spot disease, which wiped out many farms and businesses. (CONTINUED ON PAGE 10)
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