Aquaculture in Taiwan：Towards a sustainable industry. In：D.S. Liao (ed.)

Abstract

Aquaculture has a long history in Taiwan. During its infancy, however, aquaculture was practiced only as an adjunct of agriculture. Thus it could not compete with other agriculture sectors then, either in production or value. This situation changed when the development of aquaculture took off during the 1960s. Aquaculture. attracted a lot of people, particularly small agricultural farmers and entrepreneurs, providing them a major income source. In 1993, total seafood product export was 357,338 tons, which was only about half of the crop product exports of 706,373 tons. In value, however, seafood exports. at US$ 1,326 million were 64% more than that of crop exports, US$809 million. During the economic transformation of Taiwan in the early 1970s, aauaculture played a very important role in stabilizing the rural economy, particularly coastal communities. Due to the inadequate and inconsistent planning, management, and implementation or enforcement of aquacultural policies by the government, some serious doubts have been .cast by the general public about the role of aquaculture in Taiwan. Besides this governmental impediment, the aquaculture industry also surfers from environmental, technical, and economic impediments. This paper attempts to discuss ways to hurdle these impediments to the further development of aquaculture in .Taiwan, toward becoming the aquaculture research and development center of the world and toward establishing a sustainable industry in Taiwan.