http://www.enn.com/news/2003-08-08/s_7332.asp

OSLO, Norway - Fish farming, a growing global industry, can be a major
contributor in feeding the world's hungry and help fight poverty, fishery
experts told an international conference Thursday.

An increasing number of people depend on aquaculture - the farming of fish,
crustaceans and aquatic plants - with some 1 billion people satisfying
protein needs from eating fish, researchers said.

"Aquaculture is the only way to fill the gap between growing demand and
supply in the future," Jiansan Jia, from the U.N. Food and Agriculture
Organization, said.

As wild fish stocks continue to dwindle, often due to overfishing, fish
farming has increased in importance, Jia said at the opening of the meeting
in Trondheim, 500 kilometers (310 miles) north of the capital, Oslo.

Aquaculture provides about 36 percent of people's daily protein intake - 4
percent more than in 1970 - and is growing annually by 10 percent, providing
more jobs, he added.

It is the world's fastest growing food industry that uses animals as raw
materials, with most of it on small, family owned farms, while industrial
aquaculture accounts for just 13 percent of total world production.

It is well-suited to poor, rural areas, according to Rohana Subasinghe, a
U.N. fisheries resource officer.

"The potential contribution of aquaculture to rural development, food
security, hunger eradication, poverty reduction and national economic
development is enormous," Subasinghe said. "We used to say 'aquaculture
development,' but we should say 'aquaculture for development.'"

But the industry is plagued by environmental issues, health hazards and debt
problems as companies strive for mass production.

Environmentalists and the industry agree that the use of animal antibiotics
and dioxins in farmed fish pose health concerns, seabeds are damaged by fish
cages and farmed fish that escape can harm wild stocks.

In Norway, the second-largest seafood exporter in the world, banks have
taken over the management of more than half the country's largest
fish-farming outfits after debt defaults.

The Nordic country of 4.5 million estimates that its seafood operations last
year were worth some 11 billion kroner (US$1.5 billion), largely due to
aquaculture.

Some 150 experts from 50 countries were at the five-day meeting in Trondheim
to discuss how to raise safety standards of producers worldwide, improve
profits and better plan aquaculture.