5.  AQUACULTURALLY DEVELOPED COUNTRIES AS PRODUCTION INDICATORS

5.1  Introduction

This section is primarily directed toward defining what might be called an Aquaculturally Developed Country (ADC) and in suggesting how this definition might be used by planners in predicting production.

5.2  Regional Comparisons

Table 5.1 illustrates aquacultural production in the major regions of the world as measured by the following parameters.

1.    Population in 1975 and 1980 (FAO, 1981b)

2.    Population increase as a % per year (calculated)

3.    Crop lands in 1980 (FAO, 1981b)

4.    Aquacultural finfish production per hectare of crop land in 1980 (calculated)

5.    Irrigated lands in 1980 (FAO, 1981)

6.    Aquacultural finfish production per hectare of irrigated land in 1980 (calculated)

7.    Increase in finfish production (compounded annually over 5 years)

8.    1980 aquacultural finfish production in g/capita (calculated)

Crop Land: The definition of crop lands here includes both the lands described as arable lands in the FAO Production Year Book (1981b) and lands under permanent cultivation described in the same source. Those definitions are:

1.     Arable land refers to land under temporary crops (double-cropped areas are counted only once), temporary meadows for mowing or pasture, land under market and kitchen gardens (including cultivation under glass), and land temporarily fallow or lying idle.

2.     Land under permanent crops refers to land cultivated with crops that occupy the land for long periods and need not be replanted after each harvest, such as cocoa, coffee, and rubber; it includes land under shrubs, fruit trees, nut trees and vines, but excludes land under trees grown for wood or timber.

Crop lands are introduced here as a parameter primarily to test what kind of relationships may be found between aquacultural production and land area. This attempt reflects the perception that there may be special significance in the supportive and competitive aspects of the agricultural/aquacultural relationship especially as relates to inland subsistence and domestic aquaculture.

Total land area was not used as it was thought that land defined as crop land was a more likely candidate for aquaculture than the other classifications (i.e., forest, meadow, built-areas, banks, etc.).

Irrigated lands are introduced here as a parameter to test, in a similar manner, the possible correlation between irrigated lands and aquaculture. This reflects water supply as a common factor. The FAO definition of irrigated land as provided by the Production Yearbook is:

Areas purposely provided with water, including land flooded by river water for crop production or pasture improvement, whether this area is irrigated several times or only once during the year stated.

The obvious comparison between aquacultural production and the surface area of fresh water (i.e., ponds, rivers, lakes, reservoirs), could not be easily drawn as that information is not available from a common source on a country or regional basis.

Finfish: The use of finfish production on Table 5.1 as opposed to total production (which would include molluscs, crustaceans and seaweeds) is based on a desire to find a denominator common to both inland and coastal countries. Clearly this is not fully achieved in those cases where finfish production values include marine rearing as is the case in Japan, Indonesia and others. But the distortions thus introduced are generally limited to a few countries and are probably not regionally significant.

In addition to the data provided, Table 5.1 is primarily useful as a way to compare regional differences in the level of aquacultural production in terms most relevant to the average inhabitant. That is to say, for instance, that an Asian or a European is many times more likely to be served by aquaculture and to see it in being than an African or a Latin American. The significance in this is probably reflected in the effectiveness of the community support given to aquaculture in the various regions of the world.

5.3  Country Comparisons

Table 5.2 ranks the 19 highest producing countries or areas¹ on the basis of per capita finfish production. Each of these countries exceed the world average of 725 g/capita. They all occur in Europe and Asia. This listing was to determine if some pattern of common qualitative characteristics can be found. In general, these countries share the following qualitative characteristics:

1. The technical and economic risk of the predominent form of finfish production are stable and are well understood by a large segment of the population
2. The product is acceptable to a large segment of the population
3. The central government is effectively supportive of the aquacultural activity
4. The market price is relatively stable and the returns to the producer are appropriate to the risk

Based on the shared qualitative characteristics defined above and the relatively high per capita production levels, these 19 countries or areas will be referred to as Aquaculturally Developed Countries (ADC's).

(This is not to suggest that these are the only ADC's. Neither the qualitity of the quantitative data nor the tentive nature of the qualitative characteristics will support an exclusive list. These 19 should be considered generally characteristic of ADC's.)

Table 5.3 extends the quantitative comparison of those 19 ADC's and provides further insights into their nature. The parameters on Table 5.3 are the same as used on Table 5.1 with four additions which relate to food supply.

1. 1976 fish consumption from all sources in kg/capita (Josupeit, 1981)

¹ Taiwan and Hong Kong are listed separately from China as the character of their development is somewhat different from the mainland and as production data are separately available. In the following discussion of ADC's, China includes Taiwan province. However, Hong Kong is listed separately.

* INCLUDING TAIWAN.

2. 1976 meat consumption from all sources in kg/capita (Josupeit, 1981)
3. A comparison of 1980 per capita finish aquaculture production to 1976 total fish consumption (calculated)
4. The same except for combined fish and meat consumption (calculated)

1976 fish and meat consumption values were used as these were the latest readily available. In general, the changes to 1980, where a comparison is made to aquacultural production, should be small.

The meat and fish consumption parameters were added to allow a gross estimate of the role played by aquaculture in the ADC's in providing food.

The detail presented in Table 5.3 is intended to illustrate in quantitative terms how one might define ADC's.

5.4  Land Use in ADC's

Table 5.4 presents data related to this subject (from Zhu De Shan, 1980; Lam, 1982; Song, personal communication; and FAO, 1981b) but in terms of land use in ADC's.

This land use information is intended primarily to provide one further point of qualitative definition for ADC's.

5.5  Country Production Growth Patterns

Initially it was thought that the countries with the highest levels of production would be approaching some sort of “levelling off” point in their growth. This is not often the case.

To illustrate, the eleven highest producing areas (per capita), including Taiwan, were considered. As a group they constitute 6 percent of the world population and 10 percent of the ADC's population. The 1975 and 1980 finish production figures were 467 900 and 679 300 tons respectively on an 8.2 percent annual gain in total production and 6.3 percent annual gain in per capita terms. In either case the gain in production far exceeds either the related increase in population or even the world increase in finfish production.

Table 5.5 and Figure 5.1 further illustrate the fact that no “upper limit” or “levelling out” as such has been generally reached. In Table 5.1 the countries of the world are ranked based on their 1980 per capita finfish production. Clearly production growth (as shown in percentage of annual growth) is not the preserve of those countries that are just beginning to develop. As shown in Figure 5.1 the production component, far from “levelling off” as higher levels of production are achieved, continues upward, off the chart.

(Note: The Figure 5.1 points are individual countries with per capita finfish production being plotted against their position in cumulative populations, as shown in Table 5.5).

To analyse this by suggesting that there is no upper limit to production clearly defies reason. In fact, in the case of individual countries or commodities, limits reflective of current conditions have been reached. (For example, carp production in China would appear to be reaching a “levelling off” stage as new space available to ponds is diminishing as there is competition for the space. Thus growth will depend on improved technology or culture of other organisms.) However, one may conclude that use of examples of individual ADC's to better understand the potential for similar countries, that do not now have significant aquacultural development, is valid.

One further tentative conclusion can be inferred from Figure 5.1. That is that there is some point, perhaps a “threshold”, that represents a dividing line between a slow struggle to achieve any significant production and a rapid increase in production. Perhaps, if we accept the validity of the basic data, this would be at the 50–100 gram/capita level for finish and possibly quite different for other commodities.

This tentative conclusion may suggest that setting a “threshold” level as a production goal, for a country programme, may be more useful than setting some much higher goal. The rationale being that once they have got to the “threshold”, the forces that support increased aquacultural development will outweigh the impediments and production will grow with less attention.

(One further note on Figure 5.1, China and India with their large populations create what appear to be “plateaus” in the curve. These are artifacts of the way the information is handled and probably not significant. Were those two areas to be sub-divided into segments similar in size to average countries and considered on the basis of separate production values, then the form of the curve would be more uniform.)

5.6  ADC's as Production Planning Indicators

The primary reason for the development of the concept of ADC's is to provide a tool for including qualitative factors in the establishment of quantitative goals. In use this tool relies on the experience and judgement of the planner, but it can be applied with less quantified data on the subject country.

For example, consider a planner examining a proposal for establishing 4 000 tons of subsistence carp production (@ 750 kg/ha/year) within ten years in a country with no production now, a population of two million and 500 000 hectares of crop lands. He might make these calculations:

By comparing these values to and those in the ADC's the planner would see that the challenge was to, in ten years, exceed, by every count, the averages for the ADC's. In considering this challenge the planner must apply judgement using his experience with both the subject country and ADC's to decide if the proposal is realistic. (Similarly, he might use this information to define what must be modified within a country to allow development toward ADC status.)

The concept of a “threshold” level above which aquaculture develops rapidly could be applied in the allocation of international assistance. The goal might be to help all developing countries with aquaculture potential to reach this level. This in turn would introduce the concept of providing the quantity and duration of assistance needed to reach that goal.

FIGURE 5.1

5.7  Summary

This section was developed to describe countries with significant levels of aquacultural production (1) in terms of their population and their agricultural lands, and (2) in terms of their common characteristics. Taken together a definition is derived for an Aquaculturally Developed Country (ADC).

This definition is intended to assist planners in realistically appraising the qualitative conditions which must be achieved by a country moving toward the status of an ADC and predicting the production levels which might thereby be achieved.