Page 58 - FAO Aquaculture News, May 2021 - No. 63

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Lake harvesting of Artemia cysts at the Great Salt Lake (Utah, United States of America). Thematic Articles

new companies entered into business. Meanwhile, A new international interdisciplinary approach is needed
seasonal Artemia production integrated in artisanal to tackle these Artemia issues and opportunities, similar
salt ponds was further developed and adopted in many to the breakthrough in Artemia use in aquaculture
countries, with Viet Nam as the most successful producer following the FAO Kyoto conference. To guarantee a
of 40 tonnes of superior quality cysts in a dry season of more sustainable provision of Artemia, several critical
only four months. Such integration of salt production with issues need to be addressed and opportunities explored,
Artemia (in the dry season) and other aquaculture species including:
(in the rainy season) maximizes land use and has beneficial – conservation of Artemia biodiversity;
socio-economic impacts, in addition to acting as a catalyst – use of science-based protocols/guidelines for
for new aquaculture developments in remote regions. sustainable harvesting of wild sources;
Better knowledge of nutritional requirements of fish and – socio-economic opportunities for integration of Artemia
shrimp larvae allowed for gradually reducing the amount production as extra income in the many seasonal
of Artemia cysts needed in the hatchery productions. For artisanal salt farms in Asia and Africa;
example, where 25 kg of cysts were initially needed for the – study of the impact of climate change on Artemia
production of 1 million shrimp postlarvae, this amount now production;
has dropped to about 3 kg. With the expansion of hatchery – development of new applications through strain
production of more aquaculture species, the demand selection and selective breeding;
for Artemia cysts has continued to increase and annual – propagation of improved guidelines, updated FAO
consumption is now estimated at 3 500–4 000 tonnes for Artemia manual, and increased training and extension
the production of over 900 billion crustacean postlarvae services;
and fish fry by a hatchery industry valued at more than – integration of extractive Artemia farming with intensive
USD 2 billion and responsible for the final production of fish/crustacean aquaculture; and
over 10 million tonnes of high-value aquaculture species – use of Artemia biomass as a high-value protein
(for example shrimp, prawn, crab, bass, bream, grouper, ingredient in local human diets.
flounder, milkfish and catfish).
REFERENCES
Currently, commercially available cysts are harvested Abatzopoulos, T.J., Beardmore, J.A., Clegg, J.S. & Sorgeloos, P.
from the Great Salt Lake in North America, from several 2002. Artemia: basic and applied biology. Dordrecht, the
large salt lakes and coastal salt works in Asia, and from Netherlands, Kluwer Academic Publishers. 286 pp.
controlled production (but still in moderate quantities) in FAO Cultured Species Fact Sheet:
seasonal salt works in southeast Asia. www.fao.org/fishery/culturedspecies/Artemia_spp/en
Hoa, N.V. & Sorgeloos, P. 2020. Brine shrimp Artemia as a
direct human food. World Aquaculture, 51(3): 24–25.
As has happened with several lakes in the past decade,
inland salt lakes are under constant threat of drying up, Lavens, P. & Sorgeloos, P., eds. 1996. Manual on the production
and use of live food for aquaculture. FAO Fisheries Technical
and with climate change this situation could only worsen Paper No. 361. Rome, FAO. 295 pp.
in the future. With approximately 90 percent of the (also available at www.fao.org/3/w3732e/w3732e.pdf).
current Artemia production harvested from inland salt Sorgeloos, P. 1979. The brine shrimp, Artemia salina: a
lakes, the future of the hatchery industry could be at risk bottleneck in mariculture? In T.V.R. Pillay & W.A. Dill, eds. FAO
Technical Conference on Aquaculture. Fishing News Books Ltd,
and requires urgent attention. Farnham, UK. pp. 321–324.

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