Markets & Innovation
The government supports industry in identifying and accessing international markets, along with aquaculture research and innovation.
Supporting industry in identifying and accessing international markets
New Zealand Trade and Enterprise has made a provisional allocation of $6.5 million to Aquaculture New Zealand as part of a Food and Beverage Taskforce commitment to help the sector achieve its goal of $1 billion in sales per annum by 2025.
The activities undertaken by Aquaculture New Zealand will support the following strategic priorities:
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building value through greater margins of existing species and products
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building value through higher-value products
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identification of new species driven by market demand
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strengthening the industry’s position in accessing new markets
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building capability and cohesion across the sector.
The specific programme of work is reviewed and agreed to by New Zealand Trade and Enterprise and Aquaculture New Zealand on an annual basis.
Supporting innovation
The government supports research and innovation in a number of ways, including exploring options for new aquaculture species and technologies in both existing and new aquaculture space. The government is also committed to helping the industry develop its aquaculture research strategy, which will provide guidance to providers and the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology about the research priorities for aquaculture in the next five to ten years.
Purpose-built aquaculture centre
At the end of 2007, a new purpose-built aquaculture centre was opened at Mahurangi Technical Institute in Warkworth. The institute is among the top three institutes in the world in the area of research on breeding eels. The institute aims to be the first in the world to produce commercial quantities of eels in captivity. Already the government, through the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology, has given $630,000 to this important research programme.
Scientists at the institute are cautiously optimistic that they will be able to breed short-fin eels within two years. If so, New Zealand will be able to develop a self-sustaining eel farming population.
Giving cancer the sponge
A New Zealand sea sponge may hold the key to an anti-cancer drug.
Victoria University cell biologist Professor John Miller and a team of scientists are working to see how peloruside, a substance produced by sponges in the Pelorus Sound, might be used as a cancer-fighting drug.
While the drug is still currently in a developmental stage, Prof Miller hopes to take the research to a clinical trial in the near future.
“Currently New Zealand is the only known place that peloruside can be found, so scientists are working with us to find a way of synthesising the natural product,” Prof Miller says.
As part of the project, Victoria University in partnership with the National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research worked with Marlborough marine farmers to develop a method for growing the sponge on an existing mussel farm.
One of the lead scientists on the project, Victoria University's Peter Northcote, says, "Our early growing success on the marine farm allowed us to produce enough peloruside to get to this critical juncture in the research. While the future of growing the sponge on marine farms is not certain we have learned vast amounts from the project and have taken the project from a 'wow, isn't that interesting concept' to the clinical testing stage."
In 2002, the project received a $2 million grant from the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology to fund this research.
