File photo for representational purposes.
Doha: Local farms have started adopting biofloc, an environment-friendly aquaculture technique, to boost the fish farming following the state's efforts to increase self-sufficiency in fresh food production.
The biofloc technique, which helps farmers to conserve feed inputs and purify water during production, was redeveloped by Agrico for Agricultural Development by customising it to suite local climate.
The system is suitable for all types of fish farming products from personal use to large commercial farms. In coordination with the Fish Affairs Department of the Ministry of Municipality, Agrico, which is also operating the state-owned Aquatic Research Centre of Rasmatbakh, will start providing the new system to other local farms soon.
“We have started using the new technique in our shrimp farming successfully and looking forward to transferring the technology to other fish farms operating in Qatar,” said Ahmed Hussain Al Khalaf, chairman of Agrico for Agricultural Development.
Speaking to The Peninsula at an event, Al Khalaf said they developed a fish farming technique indoor biofloc and Recirculatory Aquaculture System (RAS) in a way to suite local climate.
He said that RAS is a technology where water is recycled and reused after mechanical and biological filtration and removal of suspended matter and metabolites.
“The system purifies water which leads to increase quality and quantity of fish production and allows farming more fish in small farm. It also enables farmers to farm fish out of sea in small facilities even for personal use,” said Al Khalaf.
He said that the system is suitable for all types of fish farming projects from personal use to large commercial farms with the capacity of 1,000 and 2,000 tonnes per year.
“A committee has been set up between the Ministry of Municipality and Agrico for Agricultural Development to start providing biofloc system to the fish farms operating in Qatar soon.”
He said that Agrico is focusing on developing fish farming system. The farm is producing sea fish like Hamour, Al Sham, Al Safi. The system is being developed largely to ensure self-sufficiency in fish production in Qatar.
Speaking about Agrico’s shrimp farming in Qatar, he said: “We have achieved a tremendous success and a big step which is the first in the region.” He said that the production of shrimps takes places using the indoor biofloc method.
“We are able to increase production to meet our need in Qatar. We have been doing it in the last three years of our shrimp and fish farming . Of course, this technology is not new, but it was developed to suit environment in Qatar.”
He said that Agrico has come up to this technology after several efforts with the help of international and local experts which led to form a qualified team.
“The farm works with biofloc technology and water recycling system. This technique allows us to use the water several times without wasting it. Thus, making it an eco-friendly system. We use delicate living organism such as algae and gram-positive bacteria that naturally cleans the water.”
He said that this farm was constructed under one roof with all its facilities including 12 farming tanks and one quarantine tank, and one laboratory for the viruses with PCR technologies.
He said that Agrico will increase the production capacity to cover the local market and export this technology to neighbouring countries and worldwide.
Agrico for Agricultural Development, a Qatari company, was established in 2011 to develop agriculture production, fish farming industry and an animal husbandry.
