Malaysian Aquaculture Sector: Analysis of Current Issues

Aquaculture is so significant in Malaysia’s economic growth and stability that any current issues and challenges faced by this sector have to be gravely taken into account and researched. This essay on aquaculture addresses four current issues of aquaculture sector from papers and articles published in 2019 which include pollution and climate changes, presence of invasive alien species, antibiotic resistance, as well as growing negative media influences towards aquaculture process and its product. Reliable databases and sources were sought as part of the methodology such as Department of Statistics Malaysia, Food, and Agriculture Organization of The United Nation (FAO), Wiley Online Library and Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Centre (SEAFDEC).

When discounting other aquaculture production, the demand for fish alone is expected to have an increment from 1.3 to 1.9 million metric tons by 2020. The aforementioned prediction was a calculated government objective included in the National Agro-food Policy. It loosely translates that aquaculture will contribute RM 49.1 billion to the Gross National Income (GNI). In order to achieve this, Malaysia has to supplement the current average aquaculture production of 525,000 tons by 33.5% to meet the projected demand by 2020. This proves to be an arduous task with many incoming challenges and current issues overseen by the aquaculture sector. Furthermore, Department of Statistics Malaysia reported that the production of freshwater aquaculture and marine fish landings dropped by 0.8 per cent and 7.5 per cent respectively. With the importance of aquaculture production in the context of national economy and food security, these challenges cannot simply be disregarded. This review serves to present a combination of findings on the current issues faced by the sector in 2019.

Current Issues in Malaysian Aquaculture Sector

The listed current issues reported suggest probable causes for the slow growth and decline of the sector as well as potentially beneficial focus that could be explored.

Pollution and Climate Changes

Another case of pollution that has deprived aquaculture practitioners of their source of income was reported in the first half of 2019. This case was particular to grouper at the fish farms in Teluk Bahang, Penang. The groupers were found with white foam on the water surface and farmers have been forced to stop supplying fisheries stock since April, 2009. This caused major investment loss for those involved. Centre for Marine and Coastal Studies (Cemacs) had reported that the level of nickel was 982% higher than the norm and observed algae blooms. Universiti Sains Malaysia’s Chemistry Department also discovered lead at 184% above normal or 0.804ppm, was opposed to 0.0005ppm while cadmium was 32% higher at 0.065ppm instead of 0.002ppm. Their analyses lead to a conclusion that heavy metals pollution may be the cause.

The climate change affects the quantity and quality of water resource in terms of temperature of water bodies that continues to increase. This has dramatic consequences in freshwater aquaculture because of their shallowness and lower buffering capacity. In Setiu, Terengganu, Manan, Zhong, Kasan, Suratman, and Ikhwanuddin found that intensive aquaculture shrimp farming applying biofloc system has been identified to exacerbate the escape of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere due to its heterotrophic activities. Bossier and Ekasari disclosed that biofloc technology (BFT) application in aquaculture offers to minimise environmental impact of aquaculture with high productivity. It is a modifiable system that could suit the farmers’ needs such as wanting higher nutrient utilisation, reduce waste generation, higher resistance to diseases and many more. BFT does so by recycling waste nutrients for new biomass production using heterotrophic microbiota. Whilst it sounds very promising, it is still premature as more research is needed in order to optimise the system. Misuse of BFT system can be detrimental as Manan et al. observed that the dense microbial respirations from the BFT became the main contributor of CO2.

These issues have always been at the back end of many parties with legislation and policies drawn up to combat pollution affecting aquaculture practices. In addition, pollution is also caused by concomitants of aquaculture, especially seen in unregulated small-scale farming. FAO reported that the persistent problem of fighting illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing (IUU) has in recent years been strategized against by Regional Fisheries Management Organisation (RFMO). RFMO suggested several interventions and measures globally against IUU that also works to re-establish the depleting fishery stocks.

Presence of Invasive Alien Species

Alien species may be unintentionally or deliberately introduced to our ecosystems but those that can cause adverse effects to human health, ecological and economic harm are identified as invasive alien species (IAS). IAS poses major and grave threat to aquaculture as it ranks behind habitat loss as the cause for aquatic species extinction through transmission of pathogens and competition. These species could be fishes, microorganisms, plants, and molluscs. Sultana and Hashim stated that intensive aquaculture, live food trade, and fish stocking are some of the human activities responsible for expansion of IAS.

Several news reports in early 2019 have reported the presence of Amazon sailfin catfish and African catfish has disrupted local ecosystem. The former burrows into the ground and riverbanks to cause erosion which affects the quality of water bodies. Several aquaculture farmers from Johor have complained of decrease in population of local fishes. Not only do this species cause decline in water quality, they also damage fishing nets which affects farmers’ catch. The latter, African catfish has been observed to increase COD and nitrate of water bodies such that the permissible limit of the Recommended Raw Water Quality Criteria is surpassed. These excess needs to be further treated to deem the water body safe and reduced of pollutants.

Antibiotic Resistance

Vibrio spp. has often been associated with pathogenic outcome in both human and aquatic organism. The probability of horizontal transfer of virulence genes between pathogenic Vibrio and neighbouring microorganisms is high due to its high plasticity which leads to increment of pathogenic strains in aquaculture environment. Due to antibiotics, these can easily be curbed but more outbreaks in farmed fishes have been reported as of late. A study by Nurliyana et al. in various regions of Peninsular Malaysia revealed that 66.7% of the isolates from diseased fishes were positive for virulence genes produced by V. harveyi. Withal, high percentage of the isolates itself exhibit multiple resistances to commonly used antibiotics. This is especially observed in Pulau Ketam, one of the most extensive aquaculture farms. An increasing MAR index makes treatment of Vibriosis in infected fisheries stock harder and could also present potential risk to human health. This highlights the urgency of reducing antibiotic usage in aquaculture farms. Other means of immunising aquatic organisms has to be explored in order to combat this issue.

A study was also done on antibiotic resistance of V. parahaemolyticus strains in shrimp and shellfish. Fourteen different antibiotics were tested on V. parahaemolyticus to determine each antibiotic’s susceptibility. The result was conclusive with the aforementioned study by Nurliyana et al. and Sahilah et al. who reported ceftazidime and cefuroxime resistant V. parahaemolyticus isolates from cockles in Negeri Sembilan and Melaka.

A promising alternative to antibiotics is the usage of probiotics. Chun & M.Lal stated that probiotic has the ability to secrete diffusible compounds that can inhibit pathogenic growth and up-regulate immune-related genes in pond-cultured white leg shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei). According to Stratistics MRC, the value of global probiotics market to grow and reach 6.95 billion US Dollar by 2022. This projected tremendous economic profitability in aquaculture sector. Although probiotics is an idealistic means of ensuring profits for aquaculture, many existing studies and reports are incomplete and have insufficient information on the identity of the beneficial isolates. In their study, Chun & M.Lal discovered four potential probiotic bacteria (Shewanella sp., B.thuringiensis, Lactobacillus plantarum, and B. cereus) for L.vannamei culture with B.cereus showing the most potential for its antagonistic activity against pathogenic Vibrio sp.

Growing Negative Media Influence

Following current trends of a person subscribing to at least one lifestyle influencer or online community, webpages such as Global Citizen that has upon thousands of hits daily and uses social media as their platform to promote their messages contributes in discouraging aquaculture sector growth. They are negatively construing aquaculture process and its product by insinuating harms over endorsing public measures against the unwanted concomitant of aquaculture. Additionally, animal rights organisation such as People for Ethical Treatments of Animals with over 6.5 million followers has also publically broached this topic by criticising in a lengthy article with many partial and outdated information. Kretzer touched on the dated, polychlorinated biphenyls 40 years old contamination as well as disregarding efforts made by both government and non-governmental bodies to ensure safe aquaculture practices.

Conclusion

Seafood demand has been rapidly increasing more so in recent years as an alternative to meat and poultry consumption, therefore aquaculture has been targeted to aid the food security problem. Malaysia is also promoting aquaculture as an important aspect for the nations’ economic growth and eventual mainstay and power engine of the economy. A blessed land with abundant resources of land and water, Malaysia has always strived to continually develop this sector so as to not side-lined it. Malaysia’s involvement in aquaculture is significant as it allows Malaysia to be one of the top worldwide producers of aquaculture production. However, as was mentioned in the paper, the listed current issues in Malaysian aquaculture cause negative changes and effects on this sector. 

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