Worldwide growth in aquaculture is prompting the industry to consider selective breeding as a potential area to increase production and efficiency.
Selective breeding and its current and future role in aquaculture is one of the topics being covered at the forthcoming World Aquaculture Adelaide 2014 Conference to be held in Adelaide, South Australia, in June.
The conference will draw on international experiences in the commercial establishment, ownership and running of selective breeding programs, with speakers considering a range of business and co-operative models for running such initiatives.
Session chair Dr Nick Robinson; from the Norwegian Institute of Food, Fisheries and Aquaculture Research in Norway; said selective breeding has been shown to be one of the most effective tools in improving the biological efficiency of production.
"However currently less than 10 per cent of the world's aquaculture production is based on genetically improved stocks," he said.
Dr Robinson said there was probably due to a variety of factors including:
• Large upfront costs of establishing selective breeding programs of a scale and complexity that will produce beneficial outcomes (strong genetic improvement in key economic traits)
• The relatively small size of current aquaculture industries and willingness to pay for improved stock (smaller scale and less revenue compared to livestock)
• Large numbers of different species under production, each requiring their own breeding program and specialised knowledge base
"There are, however, an increasing number of mature breeding programs in aquaculture that has moved out of the realms of research and development and becoming commercialised," Dr Robinson concluded.
