The report cited below is very long so be sure to click on the link to read the article in its entirety on the site it originally appeared on. I have only included the text where Project Sea Dragon gets a mention, but the whole article is well worth a read.
Global nutrition needs will be met not only through continued advances in the beef, dairy and grain sectors, but also through new opportunities for innovation and expansion in aquaculture, Nigel Preston says. And such an opportunity is being harnessed by the team behind Project Sea Dragon, he says.
Project Sea Dragon is an ambitious plan for pond-based prawn aquaculture development across northern Australia that seeks to increase national prawn production dramatically over the next seven to eight years.
Farmed prawn production in Australia covers less than 1000 hectares, but Project Sea Dragon, a Seafarms Group Limited project, plans to increase that by at least 10 times by developing 10,000 hectares of land into ponds to produce 100,000 tonnes of Black Tiger Prawns a year.
In a departure from the industry standard, which is characterised by small farms supplying to the domestic market, Project Sea Dragon involves large-scale production with an eye to supplying the growing export market – a kind of 'big agri' for prawns.
"In other words, we are talking about what Australian agriculture has done for a long time with grain and livestock exports," says Commodities Group economist Daniel Fels. "We've got a preference for large farms because, as Australians have known from very early days, they give you economies of scale."
Daniel Fels says the plan is ambitious but realistic in a climate where demand is strong and growing, and land is available.
Of the seven million tonnes of prawns eaten throughout the world every year, four million tonnes are farmed, he says. Twelve years ago, less than 1.5 million tonnes of prawns were farmed. "There's been a massive ramp-up of supply but there has also been a massive ramp-up of demand and it appears to be a good, strong, sustainable demand," he says.
But through this period of growth in supply and demand, Australia's farmed prawn production has remained at about 4000 tonnes a year. "Australia hasn't joined that prawn boom, so while our project is ahead of the curve in the Australian context, in the global context we are possibly late adopters," he says. "We are catching up."
Daniel Fels says there is promising potential across Australia's north to develop the land required, particularly in WA and NT, where government agencies are helping guide investors through the regulatory processes involved in establishing an aquaculture venture.
In NT, the cause has been furthered by the identification of aquaculture in recent legislation as a possible non-pastoral use of pastoral land. In WA, increased opportunities could also emerge for sea cage expansion after the government recently opened a larger aquaculture area in the state's north.
"In the north of Australia, there is land and there is water and there are under-utilised reserves of both," Daniel Fels says. "We looked at what we could do with land and water and an extremely efficient use of both is aquaculture – and when we see what has happened to aquaculture in the rest of the world (Figure 5) it starts to really resonate."
A Queensland Competition Authority (QCA) review is investigating options for reforming regulation of the state's aquaculture industry. Helen Jenkins has welcomed the review, saying she believes there is potential to expand prawn production from its current area of 692 hectares in Queensland to 5000 hectares without negative environmental impact.
"This industry sector has campaigned long and hard for a regulatory approach that facilitates expansion … while balancing environmental protection," she says.
The Project Sea Dragon team has also put a submission to the QCA review and Daniel Fels says he is optimistic about prospects in Queensland.
"The process for development in northern Australia is complex, but the company has been working carefully with state and federal governments, land owners and other stakeholders through a 'matrix' of issues involving Native Title, and the geophysical, employment, logistics and environmental sustainability," he says.
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"There's been a massive ramp-up of supply but there has also been a massive ramp-up of demand and it appears to be a good, strong, sustainable demand," he says.
