Pacific Oysters
Image credit: Gautsch on Flickr
(CC BY-SA 2.0)
Mining billionaire Andrew 'Twiggy' Forrest has decided to invest in aquaculture prompted by what he has described as a pillaging of global seafood stocks. In a recent interview Mr Forrest said that the increasing demand for protein globally cannot be met with wild caught seafood alone.
Mr Forrest's agribusiness arm, Harvest Road Group, last week announced it had agreed to acquire an oyster farming operation at Albany, on Western Australia's south coast, for an undisclosed sum.
While not disclosing the value of the Ocean Foods International acquisition, Mr Forrest said Harvest Road planned to spend $16 million developing its Albany business with a view towards making the town an aquaculture hub.
Under the Albany plans, Harvest Road aims to increase annual production from 10,000 dozen oysters to 1.5 million.
In the recent interview Mr Forrest stressed that when he says current fishing practises are unsustainable, he meant this in a global sense, not the local Australian fishermen who he believes are the key to a future of sustainable fishing.
According to a recent article from ABC News, Mr Forrest's comments coincided with a report that claimed illegal seafood trading is costing as much as $26 billion per year. And a joint study by Australian and Canadian Universities that said up to 14 million tonnes a year of unreported fishing is being traded each year.
Visit the Harvest Road Group website, HERE.
