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Aquapesca Mozambique to invest US$50 million in prawn biosecurity by 2020
12:57 CAT | 13 Nov 2018
File photo: Centro de Informação e Negócios
Following the catastrophe that hit Aquapesca in 2011, when at least 500 tons of prawn were contaminated by white spot disease leading to the loss of about US$45 million, the company has announced that it intends to invest a total of US$50 million in biosecurity throughout its production chain to avoid crustaceans now being farmed contracting the disease again.
Director of Production at Aquapesca Vicente Ernesto announced that at the moment the firm is only running four tanks with an overall production capacity of ten tons per hectare, but that it intends to produce 1,000 tons per year by 2020, hence the investment in production and biosecurity.
“The white spot prevention biosecurity system allows prawn-farming water to remain unchanged and for healthy prawn to develop under those conditions,” he said.
Ernesto was speaking during a working visit by the deputy minister of the Inland Sea and Fisheries, and said that the company hoped to expand from the four existing production tanks to 20 tanks in the second half of the next year. Aquapesca plans to build 50 tanks of half a hectare each by 2020.
The company has a total of 209 employees working in shrimp production: 170 in Inhassunge and 30 in the hatchery in Nacala in the northern province of Nampula. In addition to prawn, Aquapesca also produces tilapia fish.
Deputy Minister of the Sea, Inland Waters and Fisheries Henriques Bongesse visited the company in the Inhassunge district and encouraged the management there to increase production in response to the company’s losses following the 2011 white spot disease outbreak.
“Seeing the rebirth of Aquapesca after the catastrophe of the white spot outbreak encourages us, and that is why we too wish to encourage this company,” he said.
By Jorge Marcos
Source: O País
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