Tilapia 2010 Conference, October 27-29 - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Tilapia has become the shining star of aquaculture with farms starting and expanding across the globe while consumption races ahead of even the most ambitious farm building plans. 2010 will see farmed tilapia exceed 3.2 million metric tons, surging further ahead of the salmon industry. We are also seeing an explosion of product forms in the grocery stores that is only matched by the variety of preparations we see in the restaurant trade.
The global adoption of tilapia as a substitute for all kinds of wild-caught fish has driven demand higher every year, even through the global recession of recent years. The description of tilapia as an “aquatic chicken” becomes more accurate every day. It’s wide acceptance across all cultural, religious, and economic groups is similar to chicken. A variety of breeds and strains have been developed and by most measures, tilapia is now the most highly domesticated of farmed fishes. Unique amongst the major farmed fishes, tilapia maintains a key role in rural aquaculture improving the welfare of the poorest farmers while at the same time, it is reared in the most high tech production systems and is sold into international markets for the most up-scale markets. Tilapia is still the darling of the environmental community and the industry continues to polish its “green” credentials.
Tilapia continues its march towards eventually overtaking carp as the most important fish culture crop. With a much wider distribution of production and consumption and a huge base of value added product forms, tilapia will surely be the “aquatic chicken” in the world of “aquatic poultry”.
