5.1 Government Organization and NGOs
5.2 Support Services
5.3 Credit
5.4 Other Inputs
5.1.1 Government organization
According to the State stipulations, the responsible institution for the Chinese fishery is the Ministry of Agriculture of the People's Republic of China. Under the Ministry, there is the Bureau of Fisheries which is responsible for management of fisheries routine affairs. The Bureau of Fisheries is an amalgamation of the former Department of Fisheries and the Bureau of Fisheries Management and Fishing Port Superintendence in 1994. The Bureau of Fisheries is also called the Bureau of Fisheries Management and Fishing Port Superintendence in order to facilitate carrying out the duty entrusted by the Fisheries Law of the People's Republic of China. In 1998, the state reformed the governmental institutions, streamlined organizations, and reduced the staff. Before there were 18 divisions and now only 10 are left, and the staff is reduced by 50%. The Aquaculture Division remains, the other divisions are shown in Fig. 3.
As before, the major functions assigned to the Bureau of Fisheries are as follows:
a. to formulate plans, strategies, policies and programmes for fisheries development;The fisheries departments in different provinces and counties have more or less the same functions as the Bureau of Fisheries in their respective geographical areas. They are under direct leadership of their provincial or county governments, and guided by the Bureau of Fisheries. During the reform, some provinces such as Guangdong and Shandong merged Department of Fisheries and the Bureau of Oceanography into the Department of Oceanography and Fisheries. Their duty is extended accordingly.b. to guide fisheries economic reform;
c. to implement and monitor fisheries laws, regulations and international/bilateral fisheries agreements;
d. to strengthen fisheries management so as to ensure proper utilization of fisheries and aquatic resources and to protect fisheries environment;
e. to support fisheries education and scientific research;
f. to supervise and examine fishing vessel safety and to superintend fishing port; and
g. To administer the manufacture of fisheries processing industry, fishing boat building, fisheries machinery and gear industries.
The Ministry of National Land and Resources of the People's Republic of China is a newly-established ministry. The former National Bureau of Oceanography and State Bureau of Environment Protection are under this ministry. It is evident that the work of the Ministry of National Land and Resources has a lot to do with fisheries water area management and environmental protection.
The Ministry of Water Resources is mainly responsible for nation-wide river draining and harnessing, irrigation, urban and rural water supply, flood control and drought resistance. The establishment of water conservancy facilities, particularly the establishment, utilization and management of reservoirs plays an important part in fishery production, particularly in freshwater aquaculture development.
5.1.2 Non-governmental organizations (NGOs)
(a) The Fishermen's Association:
The fishermen's Associations have been organized step by step under the guidance of the government since the beginning of 1990. Its major objective is to unite fishermen together to exchange experience and technology relying on fishermen's own strength, to help to jointly organize necessary production and sale activities, to take precautions against risk and to supply materials. The associations are developing fast and come under several names, such as Fish Farmer Association, Fish Farming Technology Association, Prawn Farmer Association, Fisheries Production Service, Fishermen Management Commission, etc. Their common characteristics are - free organization, free participation and free withdrawal, possession of its own organizations rules and regulations, as well as participants' unequivocal rights and obligations. These are a non-profit organizations, in which fishermen can have a hand in market-oriented economic activities and exercise self-management, self-education, self-protection, self-service and self-development. The associations have become a bridge between fishermen and the government, and a link between production and market. At the beginning of 1997, the city of Dalian established the first aquaculture association for individuals. And in the middle of 1998, 39 aquaculture households in Tongzhao Township, Fenghua City, Zhejiang Province established a Marine Net-Cage Culture Association claiming that they would provide various kinds of technical services through their members' mutual cooperation to quicken mariculture development in the township. In fact, the fishermen's associations are usually organized by administrative village, township or even higher level and their leaders are elected by democratic election. So they are authoritative as well as representative organization.
(b) The China Society of Fisheries:
The China Society of Fisheries was founded in 1963 with a membership of 15 000. Scientists and professionals or people related to fisheries can voluntarily join the society. It is the largest non-governmental academic organization in fisheries. Promoting scientific knowledge, and providing technical service and training courses are the most important activities carried out by the society. There are 14 professional commissions under the society, such as: Freshwater Fish Pond Culture Commission, Mariculture Commission, Natural Water Body Fish Farming and Resources Enhancement Commission, etc. The commission is usually composed of 20 to 50 specialists and holds academic workshops annually. Besides, there are two national networks - the Fish Diseases Prevention and Treatment Cooperation Network, and the High Density Intensive Fish Culture Technology Cooperation Network. These networks are organized on membership system and have actively held a number of conventions, seminars, workshops and field visits every year.
5.2.1 Educational institutions
The fisheries education in China includes higher, secondary, elementary, specialized, vocational and adult education at many different levels. In 1997, there were 39 fisheries educational units with a staff of 4 434, of which 5 are higher fisheries schools. They are Shanghai Fisheries University, Dailian, Zhanjiang, Xiamen, and Zhejiang fisheries colleges. The five fisheries universities/colleges have Department of Mariculture, and Department of Freshwater Fisheries (mainly freshwater aquaculture). These schools offer courses for 4 years duration. There are 8 marine and freshwater culture farms with water area of over 80 ha for students' field work. Besides, the other 17 higher schools have fisheries speciality (including aquaculture). There were also 17 middle fisheries specialized schools at provincial (or municipal) level with an enrolment of more than ten thousand students. In addition, fisheries as a special subject is available in 9 middle agricultural schools and fisheries courses are held in middle schools with an enrolment of 25 000 students. The majority of them specialized in aquaculture, and have become technical backbone of the frontline technical services of rural aquaculture. Starting from 1990, the Shanghai Fisheries University, Fisheries College of Oceanology University, and Dailian Fisheries College started offering postgraduate degree courses and have been authorized by the Academic Committee of the State Council to confer degrees of doctorate, mastership and bachelorship.
The students go through the basic theory courses on one hand and on the other hand follow practical courses with stress on field work. Students have to fulfil the production targets set in field work, which are regarded as a check on the students performance and graduation. The well-trained graduates are well received by employers.
5.2.2 Research, extension and training
(a) Research
In 1997, there were 201 fisheries research institutions with a staff of 7 814, of whom 5 061 were technicians, 809 were seniors and 1 891 were of intermediate level.
The Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences (CAFS) was founded in 1978. Under the CAFS, there are three integrated marine fisheries research institutes along the coast of the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea, and the South China Sea, and three integrated freshwater fisheries research institutes along the valleys of the Yangtze River, the Pearl River and the Heilongjiang River. Besides, there are Freshwater Fisheries Research Centre, Fishery Machinery and Instrument Research Institute, Fishery Engineering Research Institute, Fish Disease Research Division, Bohai Sea Enhancement and Scientific Experimental Base, etc. (Fig. 4). The basic research on aquaculture development and culture technology improvement is one of the most important tasks of the CAFS and its institutes. The academy has 1 800 professional staff, of which more than 300 are senior. The scientific research personnel in fisheries universities/colleges are also an important force in aquaculture research.
Most of the provinces and many prefectures and counties have set up their own research institutes. Now there exist 36 provincial institutes, 73 prefectural institutes and nearly one hundred county institutes. The majority of these institutes are engaged in aquaculture, closely combine research with production and resolve technical problems existing in production. They play an important part in promoting rural aquaculture development in their regions.
Provision of seed is considered as one of the fundamental elements for aquaculture. The success obtained in artificial propagation of a number of species sequentially and in large-scale production, are substantial achievements in scientific research. Each breakthrough in a species resulted in a marvellous production system development. The first breakthrough was made in some freshwater fishes (1958), followed by kelp (1950s), laver (1960s), mussel (1970s), prawn, scallop, abalone (1980s), etc. which resulted in a high tide of culture practices and production. Now, there are few problems related to production and supply of seed of the cultured species of today. In 1997, artificially bred freshwater fish fry reached 379.57 billion; river crab seed, 143 619 kg; marine fish fry, 566.5 million; prawn seed 39.39 billion; scallop seed, 789.8 billion; abalone seed, 3.22 billion; kelp seed 7.92 billion. There are 1 167 non-profit seed propagation and supply farms and stations with a total personnel of 29 310. Many rural culture units propagate seed themselves and have attained self-sufficiency.
(b) Extension services
Extension is a major input to turn science and technology into productive forces, and to accelerate production. In China, extension of some major technical achievements has led to significant production increase. Highly successful activities of the extension services at all levels of operations have helped to spread the technologies of silver carp and big-head carp artificial breeding (1950s & 60s), artificial breeding and raft culture of kelp (1950s); river crab stocking and enhancement (1960s); prawn and shellfish artificial breeding and culture (1980s and 1990s); production and culture of hybrid carp (1980s and 1990s); etc. Recent dramatic growth of rural aquaculture, to a major extent, is the result of effective extension services being made available all over the country.
After the founding of New China in 1949, along with the development of fisheries research and technology, the national fisheries technology extension system was established during 1950s. By 1957, more than 120 extension stations had been set up in the country, but unfortunately, all the stations were abolished during 1960s and 1970s. The government did not emphasize to restore the extension service system until 1979. The China National Fishery Technology Extension Centre was established in 1991, directly under the Ministry of Agriculture. The major assignments of the National Centre are as follows:
a. Implementation of Law of Agriculture, Law of Agriculture Technical Extension and national fundamental policies of technical extension and monitoring;At the end of 1997, a total of 2 227 fisheries technology extension stations were set up, with a total staff of 15 427. The Central Government has a staff of more than 30, mainly technical personnel. The extension stations at provincial and county levels are usually staffed with 5-20 persons, depending on workload, and furthermore in a town/township station, the number of workers is dependent upon aquaculture area within the station. There are a large number of fisheries technology extension groups in the villages and they derive their income from the payments received for extension services provided to the fishfarmers, not from fixed salary. Including these private group, the number of fisheries technology extension units were 14 872 at the end of 1996, an increase of 5.8 times over 1990. The staff totalled more than 39 000, of whom 80% were professionals mainly from fisheries schools.b. work out and implement the rules and regulations of fishery technical extension;
c. check, sum up, exchange and give guidance to fishery technical extension service in the country;
d. present and implement the annual plan of fishery technical development and extension in the country;
e. organize and implement model extension of the national scientific achievements and advanced technology;
f. give guidance to local fishery technical extension, staff training, and social service;
g. Check and accept scientific and technological extension projects, and evaluate and give awards to the extension of scientific achievements;
h. organize and participate in national activities in exchange, transaction, development and management of scientific achievements;
i. provide special service such as professional training, technical consultation, and make scientific achievements commercialized;
j. take part in evaluation and identification of scientific achievements, carry out information exchange of scientific achievements, and spread and propagate scientific and technological knowledge.
(c) Training
Since the country carried out the open policy and economic reforms, opportunities related to fisheries training have been offered through more than 71 newly-established training centres. At the end of 1980, training courses of different kinds held by these centres were 3 414, with an attendance of 1 770 fisheries technicians and 183 167 fisheries workers. The training courses held by Shanghai, Dailian, Xiamen and Zhanjiang fisheries university/colleges were for training officials for freshwater fisheies and mariculture management.
For the purpose of quickening the development of freshwater aquaculture, 4 nationwide freshwater aquaculture training courses organized in Wuxi, Huzhou, Shunde and Liaoyang in 1983 were responsible for training the staff from state-run fish farms and productive labourers from individual speciality households. After eight months of training from artificial propagation, fry and fingerling production, fish culture to harvesting, the trainees became skilled technicians who possessed not only theoretical knowledge, but also practical operational skill. In the 4 years 1 166 persons were trained. Afterwards, some of them passed on the knowledge they acquired to local fish farmers in the training courses held by themselves. In 1984-1986 more than 30 000 people were trained only in the field of prawn culture. From 1985, the Central Agricultural Broadcasting School organized by the Central People's Broadcasting Station began to set freshwater fish farming training courses. According to incomplete statistics, the number of students exceeded 20 000. In order to develop culture of special species, Congyang county in Anhui Province held 10 training courses in 1988 with an attendance of over 2 000. Dangyang city in Hubei Province trained ten thousand people by way of 6 courses of lectures on television and videotaped teaching for 80 times. Many short-term training courses on a specific topic or a particular technical issue are being held by fisheries research institutes, extension stations, universities, colleges and fisheries schools, mainly on the production locations, on a regular basis.
The “Green Certificate” system was adopted on a trial basis in the early 1990s. Nine counties and cities from six provinces were selected to carry out this experiment. Those selected fish farmers who had participated in one or two production cycles, proved themselves to be qualified for their job. Then the trainees passed the final examination and were awarded “Green Certificate”, or called “Qualified and Skilled Fish Farmer Certification”, by local authorities. The fish farmer with this certification could enjoy priority in obtaining production contract, technical information, extension service; loan support, etc. Altogether 552 Certificates were issued in the first training course.
In cooperation with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) as well as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO/UN), the government has established the Asian-Pacific Regional Research and Training Centre for Integrated Fish Farming in Wuxi of Jiangsu Province. This famous institution has trained many local and foreign aquaculturists in integrated aquaculture system.
In order to support fishfarmers to increase production and improve production facilities, the State has been giving priority to providing credit facilities. At the early days of the founding of the New China, the government supported fishfarmers to restore production with 20 000 mt millet and 50 000 mt salt as fisheries credit. In the First Five-Year Plan, the credit in major fishery regions added up to 195.77 million yuan, of which 70% or so was used to build fishing boats at that time, and only a little was used for aquaculture. Afterwards, the amount of credit availability got more and more. At the end of 1988, it reached 1.61 billion yuan. Under the influence of “Big Leap Forward” and “Cultural Revolution”, a considerable number of communes and brigades could not pay back the credit. So the State had to take measures to reduce and remit credits in arrears, with the amount totalling up to as many as several hundred million yuan.
In a few cases, the government supported culture production by way of granting subsidies. For example, since 1980, Finance Ministry allocated part of the fund from the Agriculture Supporting Fund to help fishfarmers in the suburbs of Beijing, Tianjin and Shanghai to build fish ponds every year, mainly to support collective units to build fish ponds in low-lying waste land and saline-alkaline land in the outskirts of these cities. For each 1/15 ha standardized fish pond, the state provided 500 yuan as working fund, and the rest was raised by the farmers themselves. In 1980-1985, the supporting funds by the government totalled up to 36.9 million yuan, and the area of the fish pond built with the funds reached 16 200 ha. In 1982, in building commercial fish production bases, the state allocated funds to remould old fish ponds, 1 500 yuan per ha; intensive culture on small natural waters was subsidized up to 150 yuan per ha. In order to promote prawn culture, at the starting stage, the State gave 3 000 yuan for building one ha of prawn culture pond. In 1980-1984, the state subsidies in this field amounted to more than 50 million yuan. Funds arranged by provinces, municipalities and counties to prawn culture were more than ten millions yuan every year.
With the increasing of individual and private culture operations, and the development of market economy, in recent years, fishfarmers obtained credits from banks, mainly from Agricultural Bank of China and Agricultural Credit Cooperation. Credit policy was formulated on the basis of national agriculture development strategy. Credit was largely used to support crop production, integrated development, technology extension, township and village enterprises and export-oriented agriculture industries. Presently, the government is encouraging to develop agriculture of high yield, high profit, superior quality and high export potential, and some aquaculture activities just possess such features. But owing to great risks involved in aquaculture production, individual and small-sized private aquaculture farms can hardly gain credits from banks. In 1992-1994, the monthly interest rate set up by the People's Bank of China for culturing eel was 1.26%. Some fish farmers had to borrow usurious loans from illegal private credit units, and the monthly interest could be as high as 20-30 percent. Now, the aquaculture risk insurance is offered by insurance companies, but the premium is rather high.
Reliable estimates on the amount of feed consumed in the aquaculture industry which is mainly based on extensive and semi-intensive culture systems. Supplementary feed is mainly farm-made or made by small to medium size feed mills in areas where aquaculture is well established and is a recognized economic activity, and the farming system is at various stages of intensification. Such farmers are demanding formulated and pelleted feed. On the whole, it is believed that about one tenth of the production from fish culture and most of the shrimp culture production are based on compound feed (farm-made/mill produced) of varying quality, and that the total supplemental feed used by aquaculturists may be in the order 4-6 million mt. However, with the rapid rate of intensification of culture operations of fish and shrimps, the demand for quality pelleted feed will also increase very rapidly.
In 1997, the agricultural chemical fertilizer output in the country reached 26.51 million mt, of which 21.2 mt was nitrogen fertilizer, 5.1 million mt phosphoric fertilizer and 209 000 mt potassium fertilizer. Besides, 22.98 million mt urea and 3.37 million mt mixed fertilizer were produced. The above fertilizers were mainly used on agriculture. In aquaculture, a large quantity of farm manure and green manure are used. Nowadays, there is no shortage of supply of chemical fertilizer required for aquaculture.
In 1995, there were over 200 factories that produced medications needed for aquaculture, both preventive and curative, and there were countless sellers. In Gaoyou County of Jiangsu Province, the culture area covers 1 500 ha, but fish medicine sellers are as many as 200. It is estimated that based on the present culture area, the demand for fish medicine approximates to an output value of 8 billion yuan. However, in 1995, the fish medicine output value in the country was only about 200 million yuan. Therefore the kinds and volume fell far short of meeting the requirements. More research and development works must be done with a view to producing chemical/medications, both preventive and curative, required for fish health management.
