The Australian barramundi farming sector is a small and growing industry, with the opportunity to sell high quality product at premium prices.

Although many aquaculture ventures across Australia have licences to grow barramundi, the industry comprises only 25 ventures that produce barramundi on sufficient scale to regarded as full time enterprises. These businesses have little or no capacity to coordinate investment in, and manage industry development. There is great difficulty in providing a whole of industry perspective on R&D and hence difficulty in capturing the benefits of scale arising from investment in innovation. Collective action on R&D will help capture the benefits of R&D and will deliver future growth.

The ABFA is now established and well positioned with the CRC to implement its strategic plan and to integrate R&D work across all stakeholders under its leadership. CRC staff have participated in several planning meetings, the proposed projects have been decided.

There is now a need for the ABFA to appoint one of our members to act as a liasion point with the CRC, to ensure barramundi farmers are involved in the R&D and contribute their resources when required. This person will also faciltate effective communication and coordination with all stakeholders, particularly at the start of projects and coomunication of results.

The Australian farmed barramundi industry output is forecast to rise sharply over the next three years. Production will double in the next twelve months as expansion of existing operations in Queensland, and new operations in the Northern Territory, NSW, Victoria and WA, come on line. Barramundi has enjoyed relatively high market prices in the past and is considered a premium fish. It is an ideal candidate for tropical aquaculture and can be produced in saltwater and freshwater. It is now successfully grown in fresh and saltwater ponds, cages systems in marine, estuarine and in freshwater locations, in recirculation tank and pond systems, and in flow through tank systems using geothermal water. In fact barramundi is now commercially grown in every mainland State in Australia.

As the supply of barramundi increases the market price has fallen. There is a need to address this pressure on price. To date there has been very little coordinated generic marketing activity by the farmed barramundi industry. Therefore there is a real need to undertake targeted generic promotional activity based on consistent, specified quality produce. This situation is not unique to barramundi but translates across the entire aquaculture industry, particularly in other aquaculture sectors experiencing rapid growth.

In order to underpin an effective generic market development campaign the industry must address the high variability in quality of product. The high variability in quality of farmed barramundi in the market occurs for a number of reasons. Highly varying production, handling and processing techniques, a lack of understanding and expertise, a lack of willingness to address quality, and importantly, a lack of coordination across the industry. This project seeks to address each of these issues.