After the establishment of a national aquaculture centre in the early 1990s, a thriving fish farming industry developed in Malta. With falling prices and increasing environmental pressure, the need was felt to diversify the species of fish being farmed.
Against this background, when I was appointed Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture and Fisheries I set my mind to revamp this sector, which is increasingly becoming a private-public mix venture.
In fact, the marine hatchery of the aquaculture section within the Malta Centre for Fisheries Sciences (MCFS) at Fort San Lucjan, in Marsaxlokk, is buzzing with activity as preparations are underway for breeding experiments with the amberjack, known in Maltese as accjol. This research comes as a result of a joint venture being drawn up between the MCFS and Malta Fishfarming Ltd (MFF), a local sea bass and sea bream farming company which has been rearing the amberjack brood stock for the past four-and-a-half years under the supervision of MCFS expertise.
Aquaculture plays a very important role in supplementing traditional fisheries. Different species need to be produced through the implementation of a species diversification programme so that a variety of farmed fish can be available on the market for the benefit of the consumer.
The MCFS is also a partner in an EU-funded project, based in Spain, for the domestication of blue fin tuna. Very positive results were obtained last year as fertilised eggs were collected for the first time for this species.
The primary bottleneck in amberjack aquaculture production in the Mediterranean area is the production of eggs and juveniles. Current production depends on juveniles that are collected from the wild. The MCFS-MFF joint venture aims at developing rearing systems for the breeders and their eventual offspring to produce viable juveniles. Primary results were obtained in 2005 when a major step towards the total control of the amberjack lifecycle was achieved through the production and collection of fertilised eggs. This has rarely been successfully carried out in the Mediterranean area, the last reported success being in Greece in 2003. However, no scientific team has managed to produce a reliable source of good quality eggs on a commercial scale in this region.
Tests carried out in Malta last year yielded very encouraging results and all the brood stock showed very good sexual maturity, indicating that the expertise and management techniques used on the breeders were indeed successful.
Apart from egg maturation, various attempts were also made at egg collection methods from floating cages in bays. It was only after a number of obstacles were overcome that some success was finally achieved towards the end of the spawning period.
These systems and techniques will be tested again during the spawning season this year. The design for proper breeding systems for efficient egg collection of this species will likewise be tested. Amberjack egg collection requires a different infrastructure from that used for sea bass and sea bream in conventional marine hatcheries.
This is planned to be a long-term project and refined techniques may take up to five years to accomplish. This year the aim is to obtain a larger number of viable fertilised eggs. There are further hurdles to overcome, especially the hatching of the eggs and their survival to the juvenile stages.
It must be borne in mind that amberjack aquaculture is still in its infancy and more work needs to be done on the various stages of the lifecycle of this species. This has already been seen when the culture of sea bass and sea bream started developing a few decades ago. Nowadays commercial scale hatchery techniques for these two species are very advanced and will make life easier for the adaptation and adoption of similar techniques for amberjack.
The project is under the direction of Robert Vassallo-Agius, who has been implementing advanced management techniques on the brood stock of this species over the past few years, applying the experience he gained in this area in Japan, where he obtained his qualifications on the subject.
Obtaining fertilised eggs of any species is a breakthrough because it is very difficult for some species like the amberjack and tuna to spawn due to various requirements that are difficult to duplicate in captivity.
The next few years appear to be very promising for the continued development of sustainable aquaculture in Malta and there is a lot to look forward to on this front as we aim to develop these new techniques for rearing a variety of species from commercially produced eggs.
Dr Agius is Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture and Fisheries.