Toyota Tsusho, Kinki University to Commercialize World's First Complete Bluefin Tuna Farming

Toyota Tsusho Corporation, a major Japanese trading company, and Kinki University announced a technical collaborative agreement for a complete bluefin tuna farming business on September 10, 2010. Establishing KK Tuna Dream Goto, a wholly-owned entity, Toyota Tsusho has made a move to become the first in the world to commercialize a complete bluefin tuna farming operation.

The Fisheries Laboratory of Kinki University has been conducting research on bluefin tuna farming since 1970. In 1979, the laboratory succeeded in artificially hatching and nurturing fish from eggs laid by the parent fish, which were nurtured from juveniles captured in the open sea. In 2002, the laboratory achieved a complete farming cycle from egg-laying to breeding of an artificially nurtured parent fish for the first time in the world. In 2009, it shipped about 40,000 artificially hatched and raised young fish (called yokowa) 25 to 30 centimeters in length to bluefin tuna farmers.

Conventionally, natural yokowa are captured and used to farm bluefin tuna. Since it depends on natural resources, there are challenges such as depletion from overfishing and an unstable volume of catches. Kinki University's complete farming technology could be a solution. To further increase production volume, however, many large fish tanks are needed for "intermediate breeding" which nurtures juveniles into yokowa.

Tuna Dream Goto built a such a fish preserve on the sea on Goto City's Fukue Island in Nagasaki Prefecture. There, the company receives young tuna about six centimeters in length and expertise on intermediate breeding from the laboratory, nurtures them to the yokowa size, and then sells them to fish farmers.

Tokai University Publicizes Research Success in Breeding Bluefin Tuna Onshore (Related JFS article)
http://www.japanfs.org/en/pages/030278.html

Posted: 2010/12/23 06:00:15 AM