Freshwater aquaculture

Unit 1 - Aquaculture

1.1. Aquaculture
FAO Definition of aquaculture : Farming of Aquatic Organisms including fish, mollusks, crustaceans and aquatic plants. Farming implies some form of intervention in the rearing process to enhance production, such as regular stocking, feeding, protection from predators etc., Farming also implies individual or corporate “ownership” of stock being cultivated.
Two essential factors together differentiate (distinguish) aquaculture from capture fisheries.

• Intervention to enhance production
• Ownership of the stock

Activities constituting Aquaculture:
The following activities are considered as aquaculture:

• Rearing of fry, spat, post larvae etc., in hatcheries,
• Stocking of ponds, cages, tanks, raceways and temporary savages with wild caught or hatchery reared juveniles to produce marketable fish/shellfish/aquatic plants/other aquatic animals.
• Culture in private tidal ponds e.g Indonesia Tambaks
• Rearing molluscs to market size from hatchery produced spat, transferred natural spat fall or transferred part-
• Stocked fish culture in paddy fields.
• Harvesting planted or suspended seaweed
• Valliculture (Culture in coastal lagoons)