Modern man is used to control nature. His grandiose projects have long been not fiction, but reality. If necessary, it can turn back rivers, disperse clouds, grow a whole flock of sheep Dolly. And to breed fish ... Aquaculture is a line of activity that people mastered at least four thousand years ago. This is the first (of the two main) freshwater direction. But the second - mariculture (marine) - has been mastered for more than one century.
Scamps full of mullet ...
On his fish "plantations" a person recreates all the conditions that allow to breed and grow aquatic organisms. The process includes a full cycle or only part of it (depending on the tasks). It is believed that aquaculture is the brainchild of China, where as early as 3750 years ago freshwater ponds were created and fish bred in them.
A little bit about "living silver." It is commodity and non-commodity. Non-marketed small fish, as a rule, are fed to cattle and poultry. A man uses a dining room (commodity). It is known that the Chinese grew different types of high-quality "second meat" back in 1120 BC. Information on the first allowance for beginner aquatic vertebrate breeders has been preserved. The “textbook” was written by a certain Fan Li (China) in 599 BC. e.
Useful sea red algae (porphyry), edible bivalve sea mollusks (oysters), pearls (molluscs inside which the stone grows), and ray-like yummy (mullet) were grown half a millennium ago in the author’s homeland.
In bays, bays, lagoons
Later they engaged in fish farming in Mesopotamia, in the valley of two great rivers - the Tigris and Euphrates. Aquaculture is a business familiar to both the ancient Egyptians, Romans, Greeks, and other earthlings. On the coast of the Mediterranean Sea at a time when it belonged to the Roman Empire, mullet of "own production" splashed in lagoons filled with brackish water.
The peoples inhabiting countless islands of the Pacific Ocean used bays and bays as a reservoir for their fish plantations. Pools with farmed marine fish in Hawaii existed in the 15th century. Artificial reservoirs were separated from the sea by ramparts and dams.
It is said that one hundred and fifty-nine such structures "survived" until 1900. It is known that Japanese underwater "agricultural enterprises" have been producing oysters, algae, and scallops since the seventeenth century.
Monastic carp and not only
Russian aquaculture is rooted in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Particular attention at the very beginning was attracted by the tenacious unpretentious carp. The first carp farms appeared at monasteries, later ponds were found on the lands of landowners and, of course, on state ones.
Worldwide human consumption of fish products is high. Half of it is aquaculture grown by the caring hands of man. The surge in industry development occurred in the seventies and eighties of the twentieth century. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), about four hundred and fifty species and subspecies of fish are cultivated, including crustaceans, mollusks, algae, and other aquatic organisms with high nutritional value.
Catch up and overtake
For many years, the undisputed leader in the assortment line of aquaculture is fish from freshwater bodies of water. Behind it are mollusks, crustaceans, migratory (diadromous) fish and, finally, various marine "sisters" and other aquatic animals.
Aquaculture is also a rich species level. If you analyze it, it turns out that the most grown white silver carp. Amur white ranks second; carp holds third place. Among invertebrates in mariculture, bivalves, especially oysters , are the most popular among consumers. As for the crustaceans, then the indisputable primacy of the white shrimp, then come the tiger and Chinese shaggy crab.
Each fishing power itself determines for itself the percentage of commodity cultivation of aquatic biological resources, but all of them are among the leaders of this industry among other countries. The exception is Peru and Russia. Russian aquaculture is in its infancy. For a long time she was not given due attention.
Outside the exclusive zone
China, which we spoke about at the very beginning, grows 70 percent of seafood and freshwater fish. Such a high level of industry development in a number of countries is due to several reasons. In particular, in the 1980s, a “novelty” appeared in international law about a sea area located outside the territorial seas and adjacent to it (up to 200 miles).
This expanse has become the territory of a special legal regime (exclusive economic zone). It became clear: "living silver" growing on free river and sea open spaces is exhaustible. Another thing is aquaculture, whose bioresources can be regularly and quickly restored.
The latest developments in the field of technologies for the industrial cultivation of valuable species of fish, algae, mollusks (commercial objects) were timely made. The correct calculation quickly led to success: as you know, the cost of one ton of artificially produced fish products is lower than the cost of meat, while water plantations are more productive than fields (farmland).
Development continues
As you know, the Earth’s population is increasing, which means that the food problem is only getting worse. Water farms have proven themselves to have a bright future, providing thousands of people with precious jobs. For countries such as China, India, Vietnam, Japan, Thailand, etc., where population density is high and employment is low, this is a real salvation. It was they who became leaders in the development of aquaculture.
Already in the eighties of the last century, three hundred thousand people worked in marine commodity farms in Japan, producing a million tons of fish per year. In China, two hundred thousand people were employed on a waterfield, who grew eight hundred tons of valuable produce.
According to the degree of equipment, farms for commodity cultivation of organisms adapted to live in water (aquatic organisms) are different. In Norway, Great Britain, Finland and other developed countries of Europe, the level of automation of work processes is high. In Asian countries, manual labor prevails.
Be that as it may, aquatic bioresources and aquaculture allow eight percent of the world's population to remain afloat — industry workers and dependents — members of their families. Given the importance of developing the direction, we can conclude: in the coming years, the development of aquaculture will continue.