Hon Jim Anderton

Minister of Agriculture, Minister for Biosecurity
Minister of Fisheries, Minister of Forestry
Associate Minister of Health
Associate Minister for Tertiary Education

Progressive Leader

25 May 2007 Media statement

Eel farming could be NZ's next big aquaculture species

Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton talked today about the high value placed on eel as a food delicacy. "In Tokyo there is a restaurant where eel dishes are so highly prized that there are two separate entrances: one for ordinary Japanese cuisine and another exclusively for eel dishes," he said.

However the supply of the delicacy is under threat because the supply of juvenile glass eels is uncertain. Jim Anderton sees this as an opportunity for New Zealand.

He was speaking at the opening of a new, purpose-built aquaculture centre at Mahurangi Technical Insitute in Warkworth. "We can't develop eel aquaculture until we can breed eels in captivity. So this facility and the research it does is very important. It is among the top three institutes in the world in the area of research on breeding eels. And it aims to be the first in the world to produce commercial quantities of eels in captivity. If we can succeed in this, we will be able to develop a self-sustaining eel farming industry. We won't hammer the wild eel population."

The Labour-Progressive Government, through the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology, has put in $630,000 to the Institute’s eel research as part of the Technology for Business Growth programme. "This facility is important because it's about building skills, knowledge and innovation. These are the ingredients that help us achieve value and higher living standards from our natural resources. And this facility is about world-class research in a region with exciting potential," Jim Anderton said.

A recent United Nations report stated that demand for seafood around the world will grow by a third in the next ten years. "There is no way in which that demand can be met from stocks of wild fish in the oceans.

"Aquaculture has almost limitless potential for New Zealand. It's the fastest-growing sector of our seafood industry. Already aquaculture has sales worth around a million dollars a day - and the industry wants it to grow to be worth a billion dollars a year - $3 million per day - to New Zealand in less than twenty years."

ENDS

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