3.1 The role of the fisheries and aquaculture sector in the economy
The common objectives of the fisheries sectors in the countries concerned are to increase production and export earnings, and to create employment opportunities. The governments of these countries have intervened in the aquaculture sector through various sector-specific policies on feed, fertilizer, trade, investments and research. Dey and Bimbao (1998) reviewed most of these sector-specific policies. This section focuses on the development plans and thrust that the governments of these countries formulated for the development of aquaculture. It starts with a review of the freshwater fisheries sectors and their contribution to the countries' economies.
All the countries studied have significant agricultural sectors contributing between 17% (China) to 28% (Viet Nam) to the GDP (Table 2). The fisheries sectors contribute between 1.59% (Indonesia) to 10% (China) of the GDP. While agriculture's contribution to GDP is generally declining, the contribution of the fishery sector is increasing, except in Thailand. The importance of the fisheries sector to China's economy is inextricably linked to the country's overall scientific and technological progress, and the energetic support and favourable policies set by the government to develop the aquaculture industry (Cen and Zhang, 1998). Direct employment provided by fisheries sectors range between 1 million in the Philippines to 36 million in China. Information on employment benefits from aquaculture in particular is not well documented (Shang, 1990) but one can generalize that it only represents a small proportion of the total labour force in agriculture. However, it is valuable as a source of supplementary employment and income for rural women and young people. The aquaculture sub-sector of most of these countries has three major components - brackish water, freshwater and mariculture. Most of the aquaculture has developed in freshwater environments.
3.2 Review of development policies
In Bangladesh, the major thrust for the development of fisheries includes, among others: culture and capture fisheries; promotion of rice-fish farming systems in the vast floodplains; and conservation and management along with institutional and manpower development for equitable distribution of benefits from common property water resources. (Alam, 2000). The major objectives for development of the fisheries sub-sector during the fifth plan period (1997-2002) were as follows: (a) to generate additional employment opportunities in fisheries and ancillary industries to help poverty alleviation; (b) to increase fish production and improve nutritional levels; (c) to improve the socio-economic conditions of fishermen, fish farmers and others engaged in the fishery sub-sector; (d) to increase export earnings from shrimp, fish and fish products; (e) to improve environmental conditions; (f) to improve the biological and institutional management mechanisms for judicious use of fisheries resources; (g) to strengthen research, extension, management and coordination in order to transfer technology and encourage production activities in the private sector and to ensure sustainable development of the resources of the vast floodplains.
There are over 1.3 million ponds covering an estimated area of 147 000 ha, some 6 000 ha of ox-bow lakes and over 130 000 ha of shrimp farms. Currently, the average production in fresh water ponds is 1.4 t/ha and that of brackish water shrimps farms only 160 kg/ha. During the period of the fifth plan, all 1.3 million ponds will be brought under extension programmes of the Department of Fisheries, the Fisheries Development Corporation, the Fisheries Research Institute and NGOs.
China's fisheries policy used to be guided by overall policy regulations. Until the late 1970s, the state sector used to dominate the supply side (production, procurement and rationing to consumer) of the fishery economy. This dominance was broken by reform that started in 1979, in favour of market development.
Decollectivization, price increases, and relaxation of trade restrictions on most agricultural products fuelled China's food economy's take-off (1978-84). It was in this period that aquaculture started drastically outpacing fish capture production. The fishery sector enjoys the benefit of early reform in market and price liberalization because it was considered a less risky element, or a non-strategic food commodity, in the nation's food security system. Price and marketing liberalization policy has had a sharp influence on the growth of aquatic production. Favourable output to input price ratios contributed to the rapid growth of aquaculture in both the early reform and the late report periods. The higher incentive of aquatic production has been provided by gradually increasing aquatic product output prices. The area of aquaculture increased from 3 million ha in 1981 to nearly 4 million ha in 1985 and over 5 million ha by the mid-1990s. With the expansion of both yield and area, total aquaculture output reached 20.3 million t, fifteen times higher than that of 1980 output.
As in the agriculture sector, technological change is one of the sources of aquaculture growth in China (Huang and Qiao, 2000). Technological breakthroughs include: (a) development of artificial propagation technology for fish, shrimp and crabs; (b) development of high-yielding technology in pool fish culture; (c) development of fencing culture technique and fish propagation protection in lake fish culture; (d) adoption of net-boxing technology in reservoir fish culture; (e) successful breeding and cross-breeding of some high-value species and introduction of exotic species; (e) development of multiple-ingredient feeds and their commercialization; (g) disease control; and (h) development of fishery science. The economic reforms increased competition tremendously, resulting in substantial improvement in productivity and production of aquatic products.
In the past, India had followed highly protective trade policies for agriculture, including fisheries. With the exception of a few traditional commodities, agricultural trade was subject to measures such as quantitative restriction, canalization, licences, quotas and high tariff rates. The Indian constitution provides for a federal structure within the framework of a parliamentary form of government. The fisheries and aquaculture sectors, within the broader framework of agriculture, are governed by state administration. The Ministry of Environment and Forests of the Government of India ban capture of some of the exotic species such as tilapia, catfish, etc., which have good potential for the enhancement of production.
Thailand's macro-policy pertaining to aquaculture is to increase fisheries production from aquaculture at the rate of 5% per year. Freshwater aquaculture is intended mainly for domestic consumption, while coastal aquaculture is both for domestic consumption and export. The policy objective is to be achieved through: (a) increasing production efficiency by improving management and culture techniques; (b) improving the environmental compatibility of aquaculture production systems; and (c) developing and rehabilitating the infrastructure needed for the expansion of production and trade.
The Department of Fisheries, together with the Network of Aquaculture Centers in Asia-Pacific (NACA), drafted the Thai Aquaculture Development Plan for the year 2001-2020. The Plan aims to increase the role of aquaculture, maintaining the importance of low-input aquaculture as a protein food supplier for domestic consumption, and at the same time, developing a highly competitive, sustainable aquaculture industry to meet consumer demand for cultivated aquatic products that are safe, high quality, competitively priced and nutritious, and produced in an environmentally responsible manner with maximum opportunity for profitability in all sectors of the industry for export.
Several development goals have been formulated. The first is to make the Thai aquaculture industry competitive in a global market place through: (a) increased efficiency and profitability of aquaculture production systems; (b) improved aquaculture production systems; (c) improved sustainability and environmental compatibility of aquaculture production; (d) assured quality and safety of aquaculture products; (e) improved marketing of aquaculture products; and (f) improved technology transfer, information dissemination, and access to global information and technology in aquaculture. The second development goal is to reduce the fisheries trade deficit and increase exports through increased aquaculture production. The third goal is to ensure that the development of aquaculture contributes to job creation and growth of the Thai economy. Other goals are to ensure that the industry's long-term development is sustainable and compatible with responsible environmental stewardship; to provide Thai consumers with domestically produced, high quality, safe, competitively priced and wholesome aquaculture products; and to develop information for and educate consumers and retailers about the nutritional composition, characteristics, proper handling, presentation, and preparation of aquaculture products' species and varieties. Likewise, it is also important to establish and maintain world leadership in basic science in support of Thai aquaculture development, enhance partnerships in support of aquaculture within governmental agencies, among local and governmental agencies and the private sector, and encourage aquaculture's contribution to the enhancement, protection and maintenance of public and private aquatic resources. It is also important to evaluate the potential for development of alternative aquaculture species, production systems and markets, and to evaluate options for improving the regulatory framework for aquaculture in support of both commercial and public sector aquaculture development.
In the Philippines, the government intervenes in the freshwater aquaculture sub-sector through various specific policies on feed, fertilizer, trade, investment and research. For feed, the government has been following an import substitution policy encouraging the use of local ingredients to reduce the cost of feed. As a means to improve the competitiveness of the country's aquaculture products in the export markets, tariffs on feeds and feed ingredients have been lowered to reduce the prices of local as well as imported feed. Feed imports are not subject to quantitative restrictions. The government also plays an active role to ensure the availability and use of fertilizer for aquaculture. Fertilizer prices are set under government controls, raw materials are provided to factories at subsidized prices, companies are permitted to participate in foreign trade, etc.
Aquaculture trade policies are focused mainly on the promotion and protection of tradable export commodities, such as seaweed and shrimp. Moreover, the country maintains an open-trade policy, with no quantitative restrictions for those willing to engage in the export, import and local trade of aquaculture commodities. Entry is also non-restrictive as long as all legal requirements are met. Favourable incentives are given to exporters, whereas importers are penalized by high tariff rates. The country has open-entry investment policies to encourage local and foreign investors to engage in a wide range of aquaculture activities to sustain and enlarge the sector's contribution to the national economy. The priority investment areas are: the upgrading of production and hatchery systems; establishing additional feed mills and modernizing existing processing plants and machinery; strengthening infrastructure facilities, such as roads, transportation, communication, power and ports; and improving skills, technological knowledge and transfer of technologies through research and development.
Recently, the Congress of the Philippines enacted an important law, the Philippine Fisheries Code of 1998 (R.A. 8550) to develop, manage and conserve the fisheries and aquatic resources of the country. Earlier, another law, the Agricultural and Fisheries Modernization Act (R.A. 8435) or AFMA, was passed to revive, modernize and develop the agriculture and fisheries sectors (Congress of the Philippines 1997). These two laws are significant to development of aquaculture because they explicitly recognize the conservation, protection and sustained management of resources as a major objective in the fisheries sector (Israel and Roque, 1999; Olalo, 2000).
