3.5 Identification of potential for cultured species and farming systems

Species should be mainly those with proven culture technologies and with established national or international markets. Some environmental concerns can be overcome by selecting native species depending on the region of interest, the species already cultured, or those undergoing trials.
The identification of potential areas for aquaculture should be based on criteria that would be favourable for grow-out of these species. For instance, it is well known that temperature affects the feeding, growth and metabolism of fish and shellfish; thus, water temperature is a common area selection criterion for all species.

Also essential is a broad assessment of areas where it is technologically feasible to place appropriate culture installations. For example, sea cages for fish grow-out and longlines for mussel grow-out are the prevalent culture structures in current offshore mariculture practice. Both sea cages and longlines are tethered to the sea floor, and thus the key assumption is that both sea cages and longlines will, for the time being and until technology develops, be located close to coastlines because of the technical and cost limits related to the depth of tethering. For land-based systems, especially ponds for the growth of relatively cheaper species, costs become an issue, so ready access to a suitable freshwater source is needed on relatively flat land whose soil structure means ponds do not need to be lined.

Shrimp aquaculture ponds in Sinaloa, Mexico The Mexican National programme for Aquaculture Management was created to: (i) enable an orderly and competitive aquaculture sector that is sustainable; and (ii) regulate and administrate the sector using processes and tools such as the delimitation of aquaculture zones. In this programme, shrimp farming in Sinaloa State is used as one example to illustrate how aquaculture is managed through aquaculture production units or aquaculture zones.
Courtesy of Giovanni Fiore Amaral