Fish Farming

Jacky Huang
English
Mrs Gurnett
27, February, 2012
Aquaculture
Aquaculture has been around for countless years, but the industry drastically grown in the last half century.   Now it is consider one of the world’s major industries. Increase in demand for food by the population has led to researches on producing crops more abundantly and efficiently.   Because of the increasing growth in our human population, fish farming was an alternative solution to world food problems. Fish farming, also known as aquaculture, is the process of raising “marine or freshwater animals and plants in controlled environments” (Smith). The objective of fish farming and aquaculture projects is to reduce the world food crisis and improve the nutritional well-being of the population. According to Smith, there are four characteristics of food shortages that leads to world food crisis; Uneven distribution of food; insufficient amount of calories; lack of proper nutrition; and rejection of certain types of food due to “physical incompatibility or culture” (Svennevig). Many scientists and politicians agree that food availability is a global problem and the severity has been increasing as our population rises.   However, the solution of fish farming to resolve world food crisis has led to many other problems that the environment has to face.
The history of fish farming dates back several thousand years. The Romans were able to raise fish along the Italian water with methods learned from the Etruscans and the Phoenicians. It is still uncertain exactly who came up with the development of fish farming. However, scenes of raising fish appeared in many different countries throughout the world. For example, the start of aquaculture in china is attributed to Wen Fang, the founder of Chou Dynasty. Wen Fang was “confined to an estate in Honan province” by the last ruler of Shang Dynasty (Brown). He built numerous ponds filled with fish and observed them meticulously. The behavior and growth... [continues]

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