Researchers have developed a method to farm Atlantic salmon in Taiwan’s subtropical climate using cold, clean seawater generated while processing liquefied natural gas, and locally farmed salmon is expected to be on the market in three years at two-thirds the price of imported salmon.
Taiwanese consume about 20,000 tonnes of Atlantic salmon every year, all of which are imported, with the annual domestic demand estimated at NT$5 billion (US$154.98 million), Fisheries Agency Director-General Tsay Tzu-yaw (蔡日耀) said on Wednesday.
With that much demand, the agency wanted to develop a local salmon farming industry, but Taiwan’s warm climate is unsuitable for breeding the cold-water species, and it consumes a large amount of energy to cool water to raise salmon, which is neither cost-effective nor environmentally friendly, Tsay said.
However, there is a readily available and inexpensive source of cold seawater at state-run oil refiner CPC Corp, Taiwan’s Yongan Liquefied Natural Gas Plant in Kaohsiung, which uses a large amount of seawater to convert liquefied natural gas at minus-162oC to a gaseous state to be distributed as pipeline natural gas, and the agency has run a salmon farming program utilizing the cooling effect of the conversion.
National Taiwan Ocean University professor Nan Fan-hua (冉繁華), director of the agency’s program, said salmon breed best in water between 6oC and 16oC, and the team has developed a technique to keep the hatching rate of fish eggs and fry survival rate at 100 percent when water temperature is kept stable.
“We have developed the fastest salmon farming technique in the world. It takes us only 10 days to grow fry to the smolt phase to be taken out of freshwater tanks to seawater tanks. It takes about two-and-a-half years to grow salmon to market size, while it takes more than three years in other salmon-farming countries,” Nan said.
The team is able to raise salmon so quickly because water temperatures can be maintained at constant levels so fish can grow in the most suitable conditions without seasonal variations, and because the team has made good use of the nation’s famed grouper farming techniques, with many of the salmon-growing facilities and management system directly borrowed from grouper farms, Nan said.
It will take about two years to cultivate brood fish for reproduction, and one more year to grow salmon on a commercial scale, he said, adding that locally farmed salmon will be cheaper than imported salmon by at least one-third.
The wholesale price of salmon is between NT$200 and NT$250 per kilogram, the agency said.
“While it will still take some time for locally bred salmon to hit the market, it is 100 percent certain that we have the ability to breed the fish on a commercial scale. It is hoped that local salmon can completely replace imports,” Tsay said.
Taiwan’s grouper industry is facing increased competition from China, and the nation has to diversify its aquaculture to boost competitiveness, he added.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday voiced dissatisfaction with the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans- Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), whose latest meeting, concluded earlier the same day, appeared not to address the country’s application. In a statement, MOFA said the CPTPP commission had "once again failed to fairly process Taiwan’s application," attributing the inaction to the bloc’s "succumbing to political pressure," without elaborating. Taiwan submitted its CPTPP application under the name "Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu" on Sept. 22, 2021 -- less than a week after China
THE GOOD WORD: More than 100 colleges on both sides of the Pacific will work together to bring students to Taiwan so they can learn Mandarin where it is spoken A total of 102 universities from Taiwan and the US are collaborating in a push to promote Taiwan as the first-choice place to learn Mandarin, with seven Mandarin learning centers stood up in the US to train and support teachers, the Foundation for International Cooperation in Higher Education of Taiwan (FICHET) said. At the annual convention of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages held over the weekend in New Orleans, Louisiana, a Taiwan Pavilion was jointly run by 17 representative teams from the FICHET, the Overseas Community Affairs Council, the Steering Committee for the Test of Proficiency-Huayu, the
A home-style restaurant opened by a Taiwanese woman in Quezon City in Metro Manila has been featured in the first-ever Michelin Guide honoring exceptional restaurants in the Philippines. The restaurant, Fong Wei Wu (豐味屋), was one of 74 eateries to receive a “Michelin Selected” honor in the guide, while one restaurant received two Michelin stars, eight received one star and 25 were awarded a “Bib Gourmand.” The guide, which was limited to restaurants in Metro Manila and Cebu, was published on Oct. 30. In an interview, Feng Wei Wu’s owner and chef, Linda, said that as a restaurateur in her 60s, receiving an
Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) on Monday announced light shows and themed traffic lights to welcome fans of South Korean pop group Twice to the port city. The group is to play Kaohsiung on Saturday as part of its “This Is For” world tour. It would be the group’s first performance in Taiwan since its debut 10 years ago. The all-female group consists of five South Koreans, three Japanese and Tainan’s Chou Tzu-yu (周子瑜), the first Taiwan-born and raised member of a South Korean girl group. To promote the group’s arrival, the city has been holding a series of events, including a pop-up
RSS