Investment certainty needed to hit goal

Callum McCallum

Reaching a $1 billion-plus target for aquaculture exports by 2025 will require support from regional councils, particularly in the upper North Island, says the Aquaculture Council.

The target - which the council says is modest - is part of a new industry strategy which has strong backing from the Government.

"We've just got to get the regional councils on board", said aquaculture council chairman Callum McCallum, a director of Clevedon Coast Oysters.

Five years ago, a goal of having exports worth $1 billion by 2020 was set. But because of a moratorium from 2001 until last year on new farms, the date has been shifted back to 2025.

The Government and the industry are now focusing on getting the Northland, Auckland, Waikato and Bay of Plenty regional councils to establish aquaculture management areas.

These will be used for new marine farms after the lifting of the moratorium, which was imposed to give the Government time to develop new rules for marine farming.

Under these rules, introduced last year, councils are responsible for initiating and managing the establishment of areas where marine farming is appropriate.

McCallum said that because of the moratorium, the industry had not grown in recent years.

Ministry of Fisheries aquaculture manager Dan Lees said the moratorium was imposed because the Government wanted to ensure new aquaculture was environmentally, economically, socially and culturally appropriate.

"The thing for us was to make sure that development was sustainable."

As no aquaculture management areas have been established, no new farming applications have been made.

Lees said it was possible it could take several years for councils to establish management areas.

Legal process would need to be followed but everyone wanted to get things moving.

"We're going to try and make that process as streamlined as possible."

McCallum said the $1 billion target could be achieved before 2025 if the industry could get more space, better use of resources and bring in new species.

He did not like the management area system "because it's added another level of bureaucracy" and felt applications could have been handled under Resource Management Act processes.

But he acknowledged that Jim Anderton was being "the most positive we've ever heard [from] a Minister of Fisheries" and that the Government was saying it would put resources into developing the aquaculture management areas.

"They think we can do it. We've said to them, 'Put your money where your mouth is because we don't think it's really a runner'."

McCallum said hundreds of millions of dollars would have to be invested in new operations if the industry were to reach its 2025 sales targets.

Some of this investment money would come from overseas "but a lot of it will be New Zealand money".

He suggested Sanford and Sealord could be significant sources of finance.

And he noted the 20 per cent of new marine farming space had to go to iwi. "Iwi have got a big bank behind them," he said.

Getting "tenure" over water space for farming would be crucial in attracting investment.

McCallum said it should be a formality for 20-year resource consents to be renewed if a marine farmer was operating satisfactorily.

If operating "windows" were too narrow, "we won't get that sort of development".

So refining the rules was the key to achieving the 2025 target.

"Once we've got the incentive to invest, then people put money in."

McCallum said $1 billion worth of sales was not that big a target when it was measured against the international growth in aquaculture.

"It won't take a hell of a lot to get to $1 billion providing that framework's in place which allows people to invest with certainty."