Sea space for sale in southern waters, but tech and costs pose challenges for aquaculture sector
Each of the two plots, located near Pulau Bukom, is around the size of seven football fields, and can be used to farm fish or crustaceans.

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SINGAPORE: As two new parcels of sea space in the south of mainland Singapore go up for sale, seafood farms are facing challenges in tapping on the opportunity.
These include a lack of technological capabilities and high investment costs, industry players told CNA.
Each of the plots, located near Pulau Bukom, is around the size of seven football fields, and can be used to farm fish or crustaceans.
The plan was announced by the Singapore Food Agency last Thursday (Jan 18), and tenders will close in April.
The agency also said it is working with local environmental groups to launch more sea spaces for sustainable fish farming moving forward.
BENEFITS OF PRISTINE WATERS
The southern waters of Singapore provide a relatively pristine environment, and has been a fertile ground for breeding fish.
The two new sea parcels will help ease overcrowding at the Johor Strait, where most fish farms are currently located.
Mr Leow Ban Tat, CEO and founder of Aquaculture Centre of Excellence, told CNA: "The Southern Islands sea space is a wonderful sea space for aquaculture given it is close to (islands) like Pulau Jong, and water there is more pristine and clean.”
Dr Michael Voigtmann, co-founder and chief technology officer of Singapore Aquaculture Technologies, said that farming in a relatively isolated location exposes crops to a lower risk of diseases, compared to sharing a body of water with other farmers and other activities in the vicinity.

"I think the real benefit is, of course, the size of the lots (as) they are quite large. And I think that's also a hint that any new bidder needs to come with a programme that is focusing on scale,” he said of the new plot.
“Scale is very important because at the end of the day, we all have to compete and we need to provide customers with a product that they are able to afford and pay for. And in farming, without scale that's quite often not possible."
CHALLENGES FACED
The size of the space, however, is not enough to get farms to bite, due to investment in new technology needed.
Bidders must use something called a “closed-containment system” to prevent damaging the environment.
Mr Leow said that such a system would allow farms to optimise the use of space, while protecting the natural biodiversity.
This means traditional fish farmers could face more challenges when it comes to ramping up the technology that is needed.

Powering such farms will be a challenge as closed-containment aquaculture systems are very energy intensive, said Dr Toh Tai Chong, a marine biologist from the National University of Singapore (NUS).
“With the technological requirements, there will be a huge amount of investment of costs involved on the monitoring front, the filtering of wastewater, as well as to optimise the production systems,” he explained.
Dr Voigtmann said the need to ramp up the technology within a short timeframe will be a “huge barrier of entry” for traditional fish farmers.
Even for bigger players like Blue Aqua International Group, which produces 120,000kg of shrimp annually, the considerations are daunting.

Dr Farshad Shishehchian, CEO and co-founder of the firm, told CNA: "The bottleneck would be technology and understanding how to run this kind of system (as) it still requires a lot of knowhow.”
These include choosing the right species that can thrive and the type of feed used, he said.
Getting the formula right could increase production and boost Singapore’s food security.
The SFA indicated the two new plots will meet about 80 per cent of the current local production, a level which Dr Toh said is “quite significant”.
“Basically, this increases our food supply by easily 1.7 times what we have currently,” he explained.