Fish farm exports cobia to U.S. market
Until the 1980’s nobody in Belize was familiar with shrimp farming; now it’s one of the nation’s biggest industries. Likewise in the 90’s with Tilapia, a fish that was once a stranger and today is common in Belizean kitchens. In the new millennium another sea creature is poised to make its name in Belize. Marion Ali has the story.
Marion Ali, Reporting
These fish may not be known to most of us, but Belizean fishermen know the Cobia as a strong fighter and even better to eat. Since August of last year Marine Farms Belize Limited has been raising the Cobia locally for export to the Unite States. The five million U.S dollar investment is a new window of opportunity for Belize’s marine industry, according to Fisheries Administrator, Beverly Wade.
Beverly Wade, Fisheries Administrator
“Traditionally aquaculture has been primarily shrimp farming in Belize and we’ve just started now in recent times to diversify and that’s really the key to ensure that the industry continues to be viable and successful to see how we can diversify into new products that are catching these high prices on the market. So we now have a facility in Belize, Marine Farms that has now introduced a new product to Belize, very high quality product on the U.S market and this facility here alone at full capacity next year would realize in excess of million plus dollars.”
Technical Director of Marine Farms Belize Limited, Jorge Alarcon, says the owners found that Belize was the ideal spot for the business for several reasons.
Jorge Alarcon, Technical Director of Marine Farms Belize Limited
“Well after looking throughout the Caribbean for a few years we came across Belize and it has all the characteristics we were looking for, in terms of infrastructure. They were familiar with the aquaculture industry, so the government was familiar with agriculture needs and regulations, and then the water characteristics obviously were prime for Cobia farming.”
“Also we’re semi-protected from hurricanes because we’re inside the barrier reef and we’re in a site where we have deep enough water and good enough current to keep us free of any potential negative issues.”
While on the issue of negative impact, the Fisheries Department also has its work cut out in monitoring the practices of the company and its impact on the environment.
George Myvette, Senior Fisheries Officer
“One of the things that we would do is to look at the risk. One of the primary risk that we would have here would be the escape of fish, and so built into the permitting process is some clause that obligates the developer to putting in place some sort of containment engineering structures that would entail the fish not escaping. In the case of the Cobia farms here, these are contained in nets.”
“There are other concerns such the transmission of disease both ways from the farm stock to the native stocks and vice versa so that would be the basis of our licensing system.”
Fisheries Administrator Wade says government does its part to promote such investments.
Beverly Wade
“This farm today has benefited from concessions and other investment opportunities that government has put in place to encourage new investors to come in Belize. And I think that as long as government has one of our priorities as to ensure further development, we will continue to monitor what is happening out there and to work closely with our business partners to ensure that at the end of the day we continue to have a successful industry in Belize.”
Raising a Cobia to export size takes roughly one year of care and feeding.
Jorge Alarcon
“We start the first fingerlings in August 2006. Last year we start with a total of a hundred and ten thousand fingerlings. They come in from Florida as a one gram 3 inch fish and after twelve to thirteen months in the cages they are what you see here, which is a five kilo fish, which is ready for harvest. This fish is now gonna be processed in Belize, packaged in Belize, and it’s gonna be air-freighted to Florida where we have an exclusive distributor in the U.S.”
Alarcon says Marine Farms is also planning to develop the local market where they can sell up to five percent of their production in Belize. The company has leased the area on which it operates its fish farm at Robinson Point about ten miles off the coast of Belize City. By next year it will transfer its hatchery from Florida to Dangriga and project that their production for next year will be around a million pounds of cobia. The fish, after its head is removed, sells for U.S. three dollars and fifty cents per pound in the United States. Marine Farms currently employs around twenty Belizeans, but when the operation gets into full swing it could have up to two hundred people on its payroll. Marion Ali for News Five.
