Last month’s cold snap brought temperatures in Taiwan to their lowest in 44 years and killed many aquaculture animals — such as milkfish, grouper, perch, tilapia and clams — raised along the coasts of Yunlin, Chiayi and Tainan counties.
Fish farmers in some areas were able to keep the water in their ponds warm by covering them with tarpaulin, pumping in groundwater, using water heaters and increasing the depth of their ponds or the amount of oxygen in the water.
However, if the colder-than-usual weather pattern persists, it might cause greater losses in the aquaculture sector, which could add up to several hundred million New Taiwan dollars.
The government should use modern tools, such as mobile phone apps and GPS, to assess the damage and shorten the procedure for handing out compensation to fish farmers affected by adverse weather, so that they can quickly resume production.
The latest incident highlights the importance of implementing natural disaster insurance in the aquaculture sector and of using biotechnology to produce species that are resistant to extreme weather conditions, such as cold and drought.
Taiwan has been described as a hot spot for natural disasters. The government provides assistance to agricultural producers who incur losses due to cold weather, but it has limited funds and cannot compensate for all the damage. As a result, aquaculturists incur considerable losses.
If the authorities could promote natural disaster insurance for livestock producers, it would not only protect aquaculturists from losing all their products overnight, but also avoid massive fiscal spending by the government.
Therefore, helping aquaculturists practice autonomous risk management should it be on the government’s agenda.
China is the world’s biggest aquaculture producer. To complement the needs of the growing industry, Chinese authorities are deploying pilot aquaculture insurance programs.
The programs are mostly run according to two models.
The first is the mutual-aid insurance model promoted by the China Fishery Mutual Insurance Association and the other is a commercial insurance model supported by fiscal assistance.
Various kinds of insurance include aquaculture insurance for marine fish raised in on-land factory conditions; wind strength index-type aquaculture insurance; scallop aquaculture typhoon index insurance; sea cucumber aquaculture temperature index insurance and mitten crab temperature index insurance.
The range of insurance schemes offered in China is more diverse than those in Taiwan, where authorities face difficulties in setting insurance premiums, and surveying and assessing losses, along with the moral hazards that arise from these matters. These points call for government assistance.
Only one Taiwanese company has taken out an aquaculture insurance policy, which is categorized under property insurance, in consideration of how insurance can help policy holders cut their losses and resume production in the shortest amount of time.
In Taiwan, aquaculture is mostly practiced by small-scale family operations, so aquaculturists tend to be economically weak compared with other businesses. If the government wants them to transfer their losses by taking out insurance policies, it should lighten the burden of insurance premiums by providing fish farmers with subsidies. Only then would it be possible to increase aquaculturists’ willingness to take out insurance policies, thus reducing the impact of natural disasters on their livelihoods.
To break through the environmental limitations on aquaculture and protect the animals from cold damage, many nations are using gene transfer methods to implant particular kinase enzymes that make certain kinds of fish resistant to cold. It has been found that this can imbue certain kinds of fish with cold resistance, but the advances have not been made commercially available.
Scientists have also identified fish genes that express antifreeze proteins and implanted them into tomatoes, thus making the plants resistant to frost.
Taiwan has done years of research on creating cold-resistant milkfish strains, but unfortunately no breakthrough advances have been made. The research conducted up till now needs to be thoroughly reviewed to provide references for further research and development.
Another discovery is that adding saturated and unsaturated fatty acids or kaoliang liquor extract to fish feed can allow fish to maintain their cell membrane functions at low temperatures, which makes them more resistant to frost. In this respect, Taiwan has obtained positive results in experiments with two kinds of fish — cobia and tilapia.
Developing biotechnology is an important item on the incoming government’s policy agenda. If research and development funds and personnel are invested to combat the effects of extreme weather patterns, such as producing cold-resistant and drought-resistant kinds of crops and livestock, it might not only relieve Taiwanese farmers from the damages they have long suffered from natural disasters, but could also bring about great business opportunities.
Whether this will come to pass depends on the wisdom and determination of those in government.
Du Yu is chief executive officer of the Chen-Li Task Force for Agricultural Reform.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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