A Fifteen-Year Plan for Cobia (Rachycentron canadum) Aquaculture Development in Brazil

• Main Author: Sardenberg, Bruno
• Format: Others
• Published: Scholarly Repository 2011
• Subjects: cobia-aquaculture-development-plan-Brazil
• Online Access: http://scholarlyrepository.miami.edu/oa_theses/302

A fifteen-year plan has been developed for cobia (Rachycentron canadum) aquaculture in Brazil. Guidelines are recommended for implementing reachable goals within a reasonable time frame, taking into consideration current status of technology development, environmental parameters, logistics and market. This plan reports potentialities, constraints and outlines the infrastructure and operational needs of a vertically integrated (hatchery and growout) cobia aquaculture industry in Brazil. Fingerlings availability, manpower, feeds among others essential requirements are evaluated and discussed. A pilot-scale operation plan including risk and financial analysis is also presented for the early development stages of the project. Asian countries, especially China, Taiwan and Vietnam, where approximately 50,000 tons are produced per year, currently dominate cobia aquaculture. Although production is expanding rapidly, combined yielding is still incipient. By 2025, an increasing global population is expected to raise seafood demand on 37% (FAO, 2010) and this plan is intended to profit from it. Therefore, the aim is to supply 2.5% of the global aquaculture marine fish demand by 2025, which will be approximately 66,750 tons of cobia per year according to our projections.