Kingfish swim in a tank at the NIWA Marine Research Centre at Bream Bay, south of Whangarei. A $19.8M on-land
aquaculture venture is to be set up at the site to serve as a model for others to get into the industry in the same way.
Northland’s major new $20 million pilot kingfish farming venture brings huge aquaculture potential for the region
according to Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones.
Jones said the on-land aquaculture venture at Bream Bay near Whangarei focused on looking at how a commercial kingfish
venture of its type could be used as a model to help others in Northland and around New Zealand to set up a similar
enterprise.
He said opportunities from the new pilot could include the model being set up in areas such as Kaipara where he today
opened the Ruawai headquarters of a local primary industry kick-start programme known as Kaipara Kai. The project is
focused on boosting local primary industry across lower Northland, aquaculture among identified expansion opportunities.
The Government, through its Provincial Growth Fund today (SUBS: Friday 6 March) announced a $6 million grant for the
Bream Bay pilot venture. This will take place seaside at the 8.4 hectare National Institute of Water and Atmospheric
Research (NIWA) marine farming research facility on Ruakaka north beach, south of Whangarei.
NIWA is a Government Crown Research Institute which has developed aquaculture at the site for almost 20 years.
It is putting $7.84 million towards the pilot. Ratepayer-funded Northland Regional Council (NRC) is also funding up to
$6 million contribution towards the project.
The pilot commercial kingfish aquaculture venture is to be built at what is New Zealand’s largest marine research
facility.
Jones said on-land kingfish production had come a long way since his iwi made a failed attempt to set up a land-based
venture of this time on the shores of the Far North’s Parengarenga Harbour more than a decade ago.
If successful, the new pilot will be a milestone in New Zealand’s kingfish aquaculture industry development.
The pilot being heralded is based on a more-or-less self-contained operation which is dependent on fresh Bream Bay
seawater. This is brought in from the sea through about 400 metre long pipes and recirculated through the land-based
fish farming operation. The bulk of the seawater is recycled rather than put back into the ocean as treated wastewater.
But some of it is discharged back into the sea, via initially-underground pipes linking the site to the ocean through
sand hills and down across the beach.
The 8.4 hectare NIWA site where the pilot is to happen is on land what was developed initially in the sixties by
Electricity Corporation New Zealand.
Four large pipes running from the site into the sea as a result of its previous electricity industry use - and with
already-existing resource consents to take seawater (a land-based aquaculture essential) – were the key reason NIWA
moved into the site.