For the first time in pisciculture or fish farming history, Taiwan was able to breed in captivity one of Asia’s premium fish, the large-mouth grouper, called in the Philippines as lapu-lapu, and commonly referred to in China as garupa.
This feat was achieved at the Pingtung Agricultural Biotechnology Park (PABP), “the one and only science park dedicated to agricultural biotechnology in Taiwan,” Director General Dr. Susan Chang said.
The Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Mofa) invited 13 journalists, including this reporter, recently for a tour. For six days, Taiwan’s Mofa showcased its many achievements in science and technology, among others.
The group toured the PABP complex, a cutting edge of Taiwan’s technical and biological prowess. It is in a 233-hectare area in Pingtung County south of Taiwan. Comprising clusters of low-rise buildings, each structure is dedicated to a particular specialty in agriculture and aquaculture.
Fish as status symbol
In one of the buildings, the second floor is glowing with lights from about 100 aquarium tanks, alive with corrals, anemone and a wide variety of fresh- and salt-water fish species.
Several fish and shrimps species are specially raised for aquarium hobbyists and for ornament.
A shrimp called Taiwan pinto is so small one needs a magnifying glass to see it, being about the size of a red ant. A pair that won in a competition in Taiwan commands NT$30,000. Another pair that has yet to attain trophy status could set one back NT$3,000.
Other pairs of aquatic fishes are not far behind in rarity and price, which hobbyists in Taiwan and China are willing to pay top price, “simply as a status symbol,” Chang said.
The building have large variety of rare fishes on display, such as the leopard stingray, found in the Indian and Pacific Oceans from South Africa to Australia; the large-scale arowana, lungfish, gar and humphead wrasse or Napoleon fish.
A pair of ancient fish from the Devonian period (about 419.2 million and 358.9 million years ago) could be had for $3,000.
High-tech farming
Soon to expand into 400-hectare area to accommodate new investors, PABP, which has an initial capitalization of NT$107 billion, is also engaged in high-tech agriculture farming.
Chang said the ultra-modern facility is divided into several clusters—such as value-added agriculture processing, energy-saving and ecological agro-production system, biotechnical services, agro-materials, husbandry and animal health, aqua breeding and natural-products improvement.
Today, there are 107 companies operating in the park, four of them Japanese, one French, one Vietnamese and the rest are Taiwanese.
Amenities for the 1,550 personnel currently working within the park are a chateau, a mall, CVS, banking services and research and development (R&D) support.
“We aim to create more jobs and to help companies commercialize their products,” Chang said, adding that the park offers NT$5 million for those engaged in R&D in science and technology. She said there are regular symposium, exhibitions and study visits.
Sources of grouper fry in the Philippines had dried up
It is not clear whether the Philippines could avail itself of Taiwan’s newly discovered technology to artificially breed grouper.
The BusinessMirror asked Maria Teresa Mutia, the chief aquaculturist at the Bureau of Fish and Aquatic Resources (BFAR), on the issue.
She said: “Taiwan doesn’t share it’s technology [so we could] take advantage of breeding our favorite lapu-lapu, although the Philippines could avail itself of many reference materials to artificially breed grouper by ourselves.”
She said pond and cage growers in Luzon and the Visayas used to get their supply of grouper fry from local gatherers.
However, the sources of fry had dried up, either because of the degradation of the coral reefs in the country or the corresponding rise in water temperature, including pollution.
Grouper used to be abundant in the local markets, but has become rare due to big demand, locally and internationally. Today, the fish is very expensive it is served only on special occasions.
The majority of live grouper are gathered in the wild, mostly in Palawan, Mindoro and parts of the Visayas. Most of the live marine animal are shipped by air to Hong Kong, Shanghai, Taiwan and major cities in the Chinese mainland where they command premium price, Mutia said.
“Decades ago, grouper farm raisers have started importing their supply of the fry from Indonesia, Hawaii and other small islands in the Pacific Ocean,” she said.
Fish farms in Manila Bay, especially those in Parañaque, Las Piñas and Cavite used to get their grouper fries in Manila Bay but they have since imported them from Pacific islands, according to Mutia.
Use of cyanide
The gathering of live market-size groupers in the Philippines, on the other hand, involves stunning the fish with cyanide. Divers squirt the solution into crevices and coral reefs and wait until the fish are temporarily stunned before catching them.
The fish are then revived in clean water before placing them in oxygenated plastic bags for export.
This is the same technique used to gather aquarium fish or ornamental fish.
The practice of cyanide poisoning started in the 1960s, which contributed to the depletion of the animals and the accompanying destruction of coral reefs.
A Scientific American article said the European and North American aquarium owners, a lucrative market for ornamental tropical fish, is worth some $200 million a year.
These days cyanide poisoning is also used to supply specialty restaurants in Hong Kong and other large Asian cities where high-roller customers could pay $300 per plate of live fish in what the nonprofit World Resources Institute (WRI) called “an essential status symbol for major celebrations and business occasions.”
WRI added that as the East Asian economy has boomed in recent decades, live reef food fish has become a $1-billion trade annually.
Researchers estimate that more than a million kilograms of cyanide have been squirted onto Philippine reefs alone over the last half century. These days the practice is much more widespread, with some of the world’s most productive reefs being decimated, the Scientific American said.
“As stocks in one country are depleted, the trade moves on to new frontiers, and cyanide fishing is now confirmed or suspected in countries stretching from the central Pacific to the shores of East Africa. Sadly, the most pristine reefs, far from the usual threats of sedimentation, coral mining and coastal development, are the primary target for cyanide fishing operations,” the Scientific American added
One-stop shop
At the PABP, a Japanese company is trying to discover other uses for mushrooms, the Vietnamese are looking to extract beauty products, medicine and cosmetics from coffee and they are also improving rice varieties for human consumption.
Other companies are trying to find ways to make medicine, health and beauty products from coffee peel, banana peel, mushroom and jujube plant, the latter also called red date, Chinese date, Koran date and Indian date.
Other firms are trying to extract medicine from seahorse of which 60 species exist.
Eel propagation is also being pursued since eel is one of Japan’s and China’s favorite and expensive food.
All of the above-mentioned activities are not new and some are being done by many countries, except for one difference: The park is a one-stop shop where locators could invent either fruits and vegetables, fish or shrimp, or improve existing products for added value.
“The PABP will help produce or manufacture the product and also market them,” Chang said.
Other facilities in the park are involved in R&D, quarantine inspections, customs, logistics and marketing. Some companies in the park pursue new ways of producing crops, breeding new marine animals, or extracting valuable minerals from waste materials.
The park offers tax reduction for the import and export of raw materials, leases the facility to reduce the burden on investors and also processes the products within the factory and help the investors market their produce.
It is pioneering a novel system of using soil and water called aquaphonics, the combination of aquaculture and hydrophonics, where waste water from fish farms are released to the soil to nourish the plants. In return, fruits or vegetables filter the water to keep the fish healthy. The two main components of the system are the fish tank and the grow beds with a small motor moving water between the two.
PABP is set up as a bonded park. Importing self-use machinery, facilities, raw materials, supplies, semi-products and samples are exempted from import, commodity and business taxes.
“Exporting products or labor is also exempted from commodity tax and the rate of business tax is zero,” Chang said.
Each tenant enterprise may apply for a 15-year loan from Agriculture Bank of Taiwan or Bank of Taiwan PABP branch. The interest rate is 1.5 percent with a limit of NT$80 million and the Agriculture Credit Guarantee Fund can help do the assurance.
Image credits: Recto Mercene