1. By: Caleb Foo (3S113), Tan Song Ze (3S127)

3. Contents
 What is the Blue Revolution
 What is Aquaculture
 Importance
 Advantages & Disadvantages
 Winners & Losers
 Challenges faced
 Case study: Japan
 Case study: Bangladesh
 Video
 Bibliography

4. What is the Blue Revolution
 It is the rapid expansion of intensive,
commercial aquaculture
 Came in a decade after the Green
Revolution (1970s; chemical-based
agriculture)
 Increase global food production and reduce
widespread hunger

5. What is the Blue Revolution
 By 1985, international aid agencies were
pumping $200 million a year
 From 1975 – 1985, world aquaculture
output had doubled
 Refers to the remarkable emergence of
aquaculture as an important and highly
productive agricultural activity

6. What is Aquaculture
 Also known as aquafarming
 Defined as the establishment of man-made
enclosures to raise aquatic life forms, such as
shellfish, fish, and sea weeds, for human
consumption purposes
 Aquaculture refers to all forms of active
culturing of aquatic animals and plants,
occurring in marine, brackish, or fresh waters
 Cultivation of aquatic populations under
controlled environments

7. What is Aquaculture
Aquaculture
Non-animal farming
Algaculture
Pearl
farming
Animal
farming
Aquatic
animal
farming

8. What is Aquaculture
Traditional Modern
Type Subsistence Commercial
Capital Low
High
(Intensive)
Scale Small Small

9. Importance
 20% of the world’s total
animal protein intake is
from seafood (higher in
coastal communities)
 Most pearls sold come
from pearl aquaculture
farms

10. Advantages
 Generates export revenue that can be used
to pay foreign debt
 Contributed to the growth of large-scale
export-oriented agribusiness enterprises in
developing nations
 Allows natural populations of fish to
reproduce while farmed-raised versions are
being used for food

11. Advantages
 Intensive commercial
aquaculture is
relatively efficient –
beef cattle require 7
pounds of grain to
produce 1 pound of
meat; catfish require
1.7:1
 Economic value of fish
is high, hence
potential profits to be
gained by cultivating
in large quantities
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
4.5
Pounds of meat from 7 pounds of grain
Cows
Catfish

12. Advantages
 Fish are given supplement for:
 Faster growth = increased output
 Colour of meat (e.g. Salmon) = Aesthetically
more pleasing
 Antibiotics
 These lead to increase in supply and export

13. Disadvantages
 Chemical additives like antibiotics and
special feed are administered into
aquaculture cages, which may contaminate
surrounding waters
 Fish have less health benefits due to
injection of hormones
 Fish in captivity might escape and establish
themselves in new habitat, competing and
degrading native species

14. Disadvantages
 As fish are grown very closely together,
they are very disease-prone, which not only
affect fish output, but other marine life as
well

15. Disadvantages
 As intensive,
commercial
aquaculture is very
costly, only those who
have enough capital to
invest in commercial
aquaculture actually
benefit from it; Poorer
farmers do not have
sufficient capital

16. Disadvantages
 Generated steady flows of polluted
wastewater and contributed to the decline
of wild fisheries (Average salmon farm
produces a volume of effluent equal to a
town of 40,000 people)
 Polluted wastewater caused by artificial
feed, chemical additives and antibiotics
 Polluted wastewater also reduce supply of
drinking water in the area

17. Disadvantages
 Triggers ‘red tides’
outbreak and
pollutes the
foreshore with
waste - an
explosive growth
of toxic algae that
can kill fish and
fatally poison
people who eat
contaminated
seafood

18. Disadvantages
 New aquaculture techniques resulted in an
explosive expansion of coastal shrimp
aquaculture throughout developing nations
in Asia and Latin America

19. Disadvantages
 Destruction of thousands of hectares of
mangrove forests, which protected
shorelines from erosion and were the
nurseries for thousands of marine
organisms

20. Winners & Losers
 Wealthy companies and commercial
farmers benefit from aquaculture
 Commercial companies buy poor farmers’
land cheaply
 Poor subsistence farmers did not benefit as
they relied on small ponds for local
consumption – commercial farming
destroyed thousands of hectares of
mangrove forests

21. Result of aquaculture
 In 1987Taiwan became the largest prawn
producer in the world. A year later disease
struck and production dropped by 70 per
cent.The industry never recovered.

22. Challenges faced
 Over-fishing
 Fishing activities reduce fish stocks below
an acceptable level
 Lead to resource depletion
 Modern fishing gear allow more intensive
fishing

23. Challenges faced
 Bycatch
 Accidental catch of non-target species
such as sharks, turtles, seabirds

24. Challenges faced
 Pollution
 More than 46000 pieces of plastic litter /
mile2
 6kg of marine litter to 1kg of plankton

25. Case study: Japan
 First to recognise era of
hunting fish was ending
 World’s largest marine
aquaculture industry
 Before 1939: 76,000 tons /
year
 By 1987: 1,100,000 tons /
year
 Along coastlines, Japanese
farm fishes with high
market value

26. Case study: Japan
 Disease and pollution problems emerging
 Fish waste and uneaten fish food accumulate at
bottom of sea
 Sludge below cage sites > 30cm
 Stifles growth of aquatic organisms and
worsen water quality
 ‘Red tides’

27. Case study: Bangladesh
 Thousands of farmers have suffered from the
invasion of their ricelands by aquaculture
owners
 Destruction to their rice crops by seepage of
salt water from the shrimp ponds
 Shrimp owners have been buying up the rice
farmers’ infertile lands very cheaply, rendering
them landless. One study estimated that
300,000 people were displaced from their
farmlands by aquaculture in the Stakhira
region alone

28. Case study: Bangladesh
 Disputes between
farmers and aquaculture
owners have often led to
violent clashes
We want our ricelands
back!

29. Video
 GOOD: Urban Aquaculture:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANpbBZu
5ViE&feature=fvw

30. Bibliography
 http://www.newint.org/issue234/blue.htm
 http://cms.iucn.org/news_events/news/focu
s/2009_marine/?UNewsID=3162
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaculture
 http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/aqua-ch.htm
 http://www.mangroveactionproject.org/issu
es/shrimp-farming/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-
blue-revolution
 http://science.jrank.org/pages/976/Blue-
Revolution-Aquaculture.html