Fiji to export

farm prawns

By Penny Gibson

FIJI will begin exporting salt-water

prawns in September following the recent takeover of the country’s only prawn farm, declared bankrupt in 1988 and closed in 1989.

Coral Reef Prawns (Fiji) Ltd and its parent company, Barrier Reef Fisheries (Australia) Ltd, are investing over Fsl million to upgrade and reorganise the farm to turn it into a commercially pro fitable venture. It has already begun supplying the local market.

With international prawn prices be tween $lO-$2O a kilo and an initial pro duction of two tonnes a week, a con servative estimate of sales is over $20,000 a week, or $1 million a year. The local market, mainly the tourism industry, will absorb 30 tonnes a year, with the rest being exported to New Zealand, Austra lia and, perhaps, the United States.

Farm manager, Australian aquaculture consultant Paul Thomas, also anticipates

becoming a regional supplier of juvenile

or post-larvae prawns to farms that do not have a specialised hatchery, which is necessary to produce juvenile prawns raised from eggs. The company has already exported to the Solomon Islands and Thomas expects to supply Fiji far mers or village co-operatives who take up the lucrative prawn farm business.

The hatchery began production in ear

ly March and can produce three million prawns a month, although the farm will initially require only five million a year.

The company will swing into full pro duction after the completion of major reconstruction work on the 25 hectares of ponds to enable improved manage ment of the growing prawns, expected by the end of this month. In two years the company wili invest in the necessary

equipment to intensify production two

or three fold.

The prawn farm is on the north coast of Fiji’s main island of Viti Levu, on reclaimed land that is too saline for other forms of agriculture. It has had a

chequered history, being initially funded

and established by the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation as a Government fish farm in 1972, then switching to prawns in 1976. In 1978 the Government decided to turn it into a

commercial undertaking run by a private

company, but this didn’t transpire until 1984 with a joint venture between the Government’s Fiji Development Bank (FDB) and France Aquaculture, a worl

dwide fish farming organisation.

The FDB declared the over capitalised, over-equipped venture bank

rupt in 1988. Although the Government injected F 570,000 to prop it up, France Aquaculture pulled out in June 1989.

Barrier Reef Fisheries negotiated a con trolling interest (51%) shortly after.

With such a high percentage of local sales, the company doesn’t qualify for Fiji’s tax-free status, but does receive some Government assistance, particularly on reduced duty on the importation of capital items. Discussions are continuing with Government on further incentives such as tax relief.

The farm grows the same salt-water Penaues monodon prawns produced for export around South East Asia and the Pacific. Farm-grown prawns have a five to six month life-cycle that starts in the hatchery and continues in breeding tanks until they reach the post-larvae stage (four weeks), when they are re leased into the ponds for maturing. To ensure continued high production of quality prawns, proper water quality must be rigorously maintained and the prawns fed every 4-6 hours with a spe cial pelletised diet imported from the United States.

Initial stocking will be 10 prawns per cubic metre in the ponds, but this will increase to at least 20 when the company installs the equipment to aerate the

ponds with oxygen, currently planned

for 1992.

Coral Reef Prawns will do its own marketing, concentrating on regular sup plies to the New Zealand and Australian markets and increasing during Christmas and Easter when prawns are in high de mand. The international price depends on the size and quality of prawn and the current supply and demand situation, but usually fluctuates between Fslo and $2O a kilo. Locally, the 15 centimetre long prawns sell for $l5 to $2B a kilo “at the farm gate” depending on the level of processing.

A F 540,000 processing plant, built to Australian Department of Primary In dustries standards, has just been built to chill the fresh prawns and process them to the level required by the buyer. In itially it will be used to process prawns for the local hotel market. Most ex ported prawns will be sold chilled only.

Thomas said prawn farming was a highly specialised process and he con ducts intensive training for the 12 staff in prawn breeding and farm manage ment, with the aim of handing over to locals and doubling the staffing level by the completion of his two year contract.

He said he expects Coral Reef Prawns to spawn interest in a new export indus try for Fiji. □