Pioneering cod farming project launched

IN A milestone for the development of aquaculture in Ireland, 20,000 juvenile fish have been moved in recent days from land-based facilities to sea cages by marine scientists at NUI Galway.

They are pioneering a project to farm cod along the Irish coast.

The “Eircod” project, led by the university’s Martin Ryan Institute, has bred the fish from a specific Irish strain and aims to rear them to market size.

The long-term aim is to supply continued demand for a cold-water species which are the equivalent of “turkey” to many of our European neighbours at Christmas time.

Cod have been under severe pressure in the wild in European waters, with quotas cut back annually at EU level and anecdotal evidence that climate change has been pushing stocks further north.

Cod have been farmed successfully in Norway, Iceland and Canada.

But this is the first time that a native strain of the fish has been bred and released in these numbers in Ireland, according to Dr Richard Fitzgerald, senior scientist with the project.

The fish are now in cages at the Trosc Teo farm in Connemara, having been reared from eggs collected from the Celtic Sea, off the south coast. The eggs were then hatched and nurtured at the Martin Ryan Institute’s base in Carna, Co Galway.

Parentage of the fish is “known”, the scientists say, and the growth performance of the different groups will be monitored up to market size – with the better performing being selected for use in future breeding activities.

The Marine Institute and the National Development Plan’s marine research sub-programme financed the four-year project.

University College Cork, Bord Iascaigh Mhara and the Irish Seafood Producers’ Group have been partners in the programme.

“What we are doing, much as we do in cattle or sheep farming, is breeding the best stock we can,” Dr Fitzgerald said.

“In this case, we are drawing on the genetic reservoir of local cod populations that are most suited to our coastal conditions.

The objective is that these fish, when market size, will have been more disease-resistant and have grown rapidly to market size.”

The hatchery kills and specialist technologies applied in the project also offer potential, according to John Kavanagh, director of the Ignite Technology Transfer Office at NUIG.

“This is enabling technology that can be applied to other fish species,” Dr Fitzgerald says.