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Valuing Victoria's Wild-catch fisheries and aquaculture industries

Project number: 2017-092

Project Status:

Completed

Budget expenditure: $507,438.75

Principal Investigator: Kate Barclay

Organisation: University of Technology Sydney (UTS)

Project start/end date: 28 Feb 2018 - 31 May 2022

Contact:

FRDC

Need

A study which measures the contribution of Victorian wild-catch and aquaculture fisheries to community wellbeing will meet multiple needs:

• Generate detailed, spatially-defined knowledge on the economic and social contributions of fisheries to community wellbeing, and elicit where contributions could be enhanced
• Inform government (local, state) of the importance of fisheries and likely impacts of policy or management decisions on regional and metropolitan communities
• Enhance community engagement and support for fisheries through demonstrating the benefits that flow from professional fishing and aquaculture sectors into communities

Audience: 1) industry representative organizations; 2) government; 3) general public. Currently, very little data exists about the economic and/or social benefits of professional fisheries to communities in Victoria. Existing data only calculate total value of production (beach/farm gate price x volume), and the number of business owners or fisheries employees identified in the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Census. There is no reporting of the multiplier effects in communities of having businesses based there, through service industries or seafood product going into markets. The lack of sophisticated information about the contributions of professional fishing puts the industry as a group at a disadvantage compared to competing resource users which do have such reporting and have been persuasive in negotiations.

Information on social contributions dovetails with economic contributions to build a picture of the overall contributions fisheries make. This can help address the lack of community support for fisheries and consumer influence on the regulatory environment, which has grown to constitute a threat to the continued viability of fisheries. While information generated via this project will not fix the problem – relationships between industry and community must be improved via sustained, strategic engagement – credible data on the social and economic contributions commercial fisheries make to Victoria is useful for boosting the industry’s ‘social license to operate’.

Objectives

1. Evaluate the economic contribution of commercial wild-catch fisheries and aquaculture to community wellbeing for seven regions of Victoria, including the regional economic impacts such as multiplier effects and employment and contributions to related sectors within regions, building on previous Australian studies.

2. Evaluate the social contributions of commercial wild-catch fisheries and aquaculture to community wellbeing for the same regions, including the social aspects of economic contributions, food provision, health and nutrition, services and infrastructure, interactions with tourism, consumers, and recreational fishers, contributions to community identity and heritage, and knowledge networks, building on previous Australian studies.

3. Build on and refine a methodology to be used for ongoing social and economic evaluations of industry as part of FRDC national framework.

4. Disseminate findings, identifying the social and economic contributions of seafood production to community wellbeing for each study region, highlighting threats to sustainability and viability, as well as opportunities, in a form suitable for engaging: 1) local and state government agencies

and 2) the general public, to raise awareness of the role of professional wild-catch fisheries and aquaculture in Victorian communities.

Final report

ISBN: 978-0-9953662-5-1

Authors: Abernethy K. Barclay K. McIlgorm A. Gilmour P. McClean N. Davey J.

Final Report • 2020-06-29 • 6.04 MB

2017-092-DLD.pdf

Summary

This project provides the first evaluation of the social and economic contributions of wildcatch professional fisheries and aquaculture of Victoria to the communities in which the industries are located and to the entire state. This project was developed in consultation with the Victorian seafood industry who identified the need to communicate the economic value of their industry, inclusive of the economic contribution of businesses supplying or being supplied by seafood producers. In addition, there was no evaluation of the social benefits of the industry to Victoria.

2017-092 Victoria's Nearwest Fisheries Factsheet.pdf

2017-092 Victoria's Nearwest Fisheries Factsheet.pdf

2017-092 Victoria's Nearwest Fisheries Factsheet.pdf

2017-092 Victoria's Nearwest Fisheries Factsheet.pdf

2017-092 Victoria's Nearwest Fisheries Factsheet.pdf

2017-092 Victoria's Nearwest Fisheries Factsheet.pdf

2017-092 Victoria's Nearwest Fisheries Factsheet.pdf

2017-092 Victoria's Nearwest Fisheries Factsheet.pdf

2017-092 Victoria's Nearwest Fisheries Factsheet.pdf

2017-092 Victoria's Nearwest Fisheries Factsheet.pdf

2017-092 Victoria's Nearwest Fisheries Factsheet.pdf

2017-092 Victoria's Nearwest Fisheries Factsheet.pdf

2017-092 Victoria's Nearwest Fisheries Factsheet.pdf

2017-092 Victoria's Nearwest Fisheries Factsheet.pdf

2017-092 Victoria's Nearwest Fisheries Factsheet.pdf

This brochure summarises the economic and social contributions of professional fisheries the far east region of Victoria.

PROJECT NUMBER • 2021-075

PROJECT STATUS:

CURRENT

Understanding water quality risk for the sustainable and efficient production of Pacific and Sydney Rock Oysters

ORGANISATION:

University of Technology Sydney (UTS)

SPECIES

Sydney Rock Oyster

Pacific Oyster

Oysters

PROJECT NUMBER • 2017-203

PROJECT STATUS:

COMPLETED

Risk from Diarrhetic Shellfish Toxins and Dinophysis to the Australian Shellfish Industry

This study first examined DSTs in spiked and naturally contaminated shellfish - Sydney Rock Oysters (Saccostrea glomerata), Pacific Oysters (Magallana gigas/Crassostrea gigas), Blue Mussels (Mytilus galloprovincialis) and Pipis (Plebidonax deltoides/Donax deltoides), using LC-MS/MS ...

ORGANISATION:

University of Technology Sydney (UTS)

Overcoming propagule supply bottlenecks for seaweed production

Project number: 2020-070

Project Status:

Current

Budget expenditure: $267,706.00

Principal Investigator: Manoj Kumar

Organisation: University of Technology Sydney (UTS)

Project start/end date: 14 Oct 2021 - 30 Oct 2022

Contact:

FRDC

Need

If the Australian livestock sector is to reduce its emissions footprint, and achieve its promised carbon neutrality by 2030, handpicked seaweed will not be enough to create a commercial seaweed industry for cattle feed. Achieving a 1% DW supplement of Asparagopsis to reduce the methane output for the NSW dairy herd alone (approximately 15% of Australia's dairy herd and 1% of Australia’s total cattle herd) would require annual production of approximately 8,000 tonnes (dry weight) of Asparagopsis. This would necessitate over 400 hectares of seaweed farms alone. Therefore, there is an urgent need, and significant commercial incentive, to rapidly develop next-generation ways to propagate, farm and process Asparagopsis at scale.

The existing seaweed farming techniques (vegetative fragments and spore/gametes based) create several major bottlenecks to large-scale seaweed farming including: the requirement for large amounts of biomass and fertile sporophyte plants, dependencies on complex life cycles, loss of vigour, and high susceptibility to variety of pest and diseases. Addressing these bottlenecks immediately is a top priority to capitalise upon the significant current commercial interest in seaweed production and the projected demand for this innovative animal feed additive.

We propose that protoplasts-based seedstock generation for seaweed farming to provide a sustainable and scalable solution, resulting in higher yields of quality plantlets production independent of spores and vegetative fragments. Further, developing seaweed protoplasts isolation tools will also aid in vitro genetic manipulation techniques for developing genetically improved strains of seaweed crops.

Developing micropropagation tools for seaweed aquaculture industry will:
1. Make a sizeable contribution to achieving the National Aquaculture Strategy and can support Australia’s economic recovery post-COVID 19.
2. Increase the red meat industry's capability to achieve MLA's commitment to carbon neutrality by 2030.
3. Promote finfish aquaculture by growing seaweeds in integrated multi-trophic aquaculture systems by removing and utilizing excess nutrients.

Objectives

1. Establish micropropagation techniques for year-round seedstock supply of seaweeds.

2. Demonstrate the commercial practicality of workflow for micropropagation – using seedstock seedlings on ropes followed by grow-out in tanks or ponds.

Final report

Authors: Manoj Kumar Peter Ralph Wayne O’Connor and Michael Dove

Final Report • 2023-08-31 • 2.42 MB

2020-070-DLD.pdf

Summary

Protoplast technology has the potential to revolutionize the seaweed aquaculture industry. The protoplast is a living plant cell without a cell wall, protoplasts offer opportunities for mass propagation and plant regeneration. The remarkable potential of protoplast technology in the seaweed aquaculture industry lies in its ability to generate an astounding number of protoplasts and develop countless plants from mere milligrams of tissue. This project explored ways to isolate protoplast less laboriously and cost-effectively with high seeding efficiency on twine suitable for land-based or open-sea seaweed farming practices. The objectives of this project were:

1.Establish micropropagation tools for year-round seedstock supply of seaweeds.
2.Demonstrate the commercial practicality of workflow for micropropagation.

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