Plans have been unveiled for a cold water salmon farm in China's Yellow Sea to tackle growing seafood demand.
The farm will cover 3,000 hectares off the coast off Rizhao in east China’s Shandong Province and will use the world’s largest fully-submersive fish cage, according to state news agency Xinhua.
The Ocean University of China and two Chinese firms have invested over 4.3bn yuan ($642m) to implement the project, which will be led by university professor Dong Shuanglin, with a schedule to put the first batch of salmon on the market by the end of 2020.
After successfully trialling the first 35 metre tall salmon farming cage, “Shenlan 1”, an upgraded cage, “Shenlan 2”, will be constructed in the second half of this year. The Shenlan 2 cage is 80 metres tall and can accomodate 1m fish, and the project aims to produce 45,000 tonnes of salmon annually, according to Dong.
Traditional fish farming faces challenges around lack of space, disease outbreaks and environmental problems.
But the Yellow Sea farm will avoid these problems because of self-purification and it is large enough to raise 500m salmon, said the Ocean University.
The project also includes an onshore industrial park, R&D facilities, and a fry cultivation base.
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