For a country surrounded by water it seems incredible that 70%...

For a country surrounded by water it seems incredible that 70% of fish consumed in Australia is imported.

While the figure may be disturbing, it clearly provides significant opportunities going forward for an industry to have serious growth prospects.

Australias total annual Aquaculture production had reached about 60,000 tonnes of fish, 25,000 tonnes of that being salmon produced for the domestic market.

Australias target by 2015 is for Aquaculture to produce 100,000 tonnes, the bulk of that will come from prawns, barramundi, yellowtail kingfish and salmon.

Aquaculture will certainly be an important part of the seafood industry in the future because it offers the only real opportunity for growth.

The three main Aquaculture methods - sea pens, ponds, and recirculation tanks - the tanks offered the highest growth projections.

The majority of production at the moment is done in sea pens or ponds, but sea pens are difficult to get going because of conflicts of interest with fishers.

Tanks on the other hand are an excellent way of controlling things like water temperature and oxygen flow. Its historically been costly, but thats changing and I think good operations like EcoFish are the way of the fiture.

Craig Foster spoke at the National Aquaculture Educators conferance on the Sunshine coast.