Aquaculture in Sri Lanka: History, current status and future potential

The World Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) [1] predict that the world’s population will reach over 9 billion within 2050, which is approximately 34% higher than today. Nearly all this population increase is expected to occur in developing countries. Urbanization will also continue at an accelerated pace, and about 70% of the world’s population will become urban over next 3 decades (compared to 49% today). In addition, income levels in 2050 will be many multiples of what they are now. Hence, the biggest challenge in the future will be to fi nd ways to feed this larger, more urban, and richer population. FAO has forecasted sea catches to stop growing at 85 – 90 million tonnes a year and all incremental demands would have to be met by culturing. By 2030 aquaculture production is estimated to reach more than 90 – 95 million tonnes, a prognosis based on 3% annual growth. Moreover, to support projected food demands in 2050, production must rise an estimated 70% above current values to allow the global population to continue to consume seafood products at the current rate. Thus, the expected defi cits in food supply the next decades are currently being targeted by several stakeholders, NGOs, and Governments around the world.


Introduction
The World Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) [1] predict that the world's population will reach over 9 billion within 2050, which is approximately 34% higher than today.
Nearly all this population increase is expected to occur in developing countries. Urbanization will also continue at an accelerated pace, and about 70% of the world's population will become urban over next 3 decades (compared to 49% today).
In addition, income levels in 2050 will be many multiples of what they are now. Hence, the biggest challenge in the future will be to fi nd ways to feed this larger, more urban, and richer population. FAO has forecasted sea catches to stop growing at 85 -90 million tonnes a year and all incremental demands would have to be met by culturing. By 2030 aquaculture production is estimated to reach more than 90 -95 million tonnes, a prognosis based on 3% annual growth. Moreover, to support projected food demands in 2050, production must rise an estimated 70% above current values to allow the global population to continue to consume seafood products at the current rate. Thus, the expected defi cits in food supply the next decades are currently being targeted by several stakeholders, NGOs, and Governments around the world.
Compared to other industries, aquaculture has proven to be an effi cient catalyst for production of seafood world-wide.
Moreover, aquaculture has arisen as the major mode of food production to maintain the current per capita consumption with an average annual growth rate of 11% since 1984. Thus, aquaculture is expected to increase rapidly in volumes and diversity of cultured species, and thereby become the main source to food and protein supply in the future. However, the success rate will, among others, be infl uenced by development of adequate technical innovations, availability on feed ingredients, cooperation between Governments, and sharing of technology and know-how between aquapreneurs.
Sri Lanka is now in the process of embarking on a very ambitious aquaculture development plan, targeting doubling of the current aquaculture production to approximately 90,000 metric tonnes ( Figure 1). Major markets for Srilankan fi sh product and total value in 2019 is shown in Figure 2. This goal will be met through sustainable aquaculture development, addressing technology transfer, training programmes, food safety and quality, and environmental integrity.

Srilankan aquaculture -history
Sri Lanka is more or less designed for aquaculture with a total coastline of approximately 1,700 km. The total extent of lagoons and estuaries has been estimated to be 121,000 hectare (ha). Adjoining these estuaries and lagoons are extensive area of low-laying delta lands estimated at 70,000 hectares.

Final remarks
The past 20 years, many Norwegian initiatives has been initiated in order to transfer Norwegian technologies and know-how to Sri Lanka [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. In the coming years it is vital for Sri Lanka to develop a complete and well-functioning value chain for a secure scale-up to industrial aquaculture level. This includes B2B, G2B, B2G and G2G cooperation domestically and internationally. With assistance from Norway, a model has been developed for this purpose (Figure 3), and creates a roadmap for both NGOs, businessmen and Government agencies (see references below).

Figure 3:
Model for development of industrial aquaculture in developing countries [9].