Prathapachandra Shetty, Emirates Star Fisheries executive director, is planning for an aquaculture project to be set up by his company on the coast of Oman. Antonie Robertson / The National
Prathapachandra Shetty, Emirates Star Fisheries executive director, is planning for an aquaculture project to be set up by his company on the coast of Oman. Antonie Robertson / The National

GCC aquaculture plan to start with Dh293m project off coast of Oman



DUBAI // A regional fund is being established for Arabian Gulf countries to contribute to the future production of food through aquaculture.

Set up by Emirates Star Fisheries in Dubai, the first project that will benefit kicks off in Oman in 2016, with the aim to produce 13,000 tonnes of fish a year by 2018.

“Aquaculture is largely unheard of in the Gulf,” said Prathapchandra Shetty, executive director of the company. “The idea is very good because there is a problem in agriculture in the region and you can’t push it too much here in the desert because there is a lack of water, the temperature is too high and the soil isn’t suitable. It’s all very expensive too, so there’s no point.”

His focus is on the 7,000 kilometres of coastline off Oman and Yemen.

“Open sea is better and it is less polluted,” he said. “It’s a very blessed place because there aren’t that many people there so it can be converted into a food basket.”

The Dh293 million project will involve inland aquaculture, cage farming, and mariculture, also known as offshore farming.

“In cages, there are commercially viable successful businesses of bluefin and yellowfin tuna,” Mr Shetty said. “Some people are worried about the quality of the fish but these culture systems can provide very fresh quality tuna.”

After surveying 3,000km of coastal land in Oman, Mr Shetty will submit a proposal to the Omani Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries this week requesting four thousand hectares of land.

“We will develop a hatchery complex for shrimp, tuna, cobia and sea bream, because these are established species and they are more commercially viable.”

The first phase, from 2016 to 2018, is expected to produce 3,000 tonnes of fish in the first year, 8,000 tonnes in the second and 13,000 tonnes in the final year. This includes 10,000 tonnes of shrimp and 3,000 tonnes of tuna, cobia and sea bream.

Experts say the practice has potential as a source of protein in such a water-scarce region.

“This is due to the efficient feed-conversion ratio, efficient utilisation of imported feedstock and also due to the unsuitable climate conditions for agricultural production,” said Nicholas Lodge, managing partner of Clarity, an Abu Dhabi-based agriculture consultancy. “Demand for protein is forecast to increase significantly in the region, reflective of expected increase in disposable income and population growth.”

Although aquaculture can play an increasingly important role, he said it came with challenges.

“Technically, it is quite difficult,” Mr Lodge said. “Suitable land can be more difficult to secure than may be first thought and availability of suitable feed is already an issue and may limit expansion plans. So, in principle it makes sense, and it is more suited perhaps to the region than other forms of protein production. However, experience to date indicates that it is hard to get right, requires large amounts of capital and, critically, the right technical partners and know-how.”

Jean-Yves Mevel, an aquaculture professor at UAE University, said a clear vision for the development of aquaculture with more research programmes was needed before setting up large production systems. “Cobia and tuna are not yet successfully produced in the world,” he said.

“Cobia has been done in Colombia and other places, but commercially speaking, there are problems associated with farm-raised animals that need to be addressed. Tuna is in the early development stage and expertise is very limited, but the potential is there.”

The aim is for the fund to reach Dh550m initially and Dh1.8 billion eventually.

“We’re looking for investors to create the fund,” Mr Shetty said. “This is the future for food production in the region. There’s no other possibility.”

cmalek@thenational.ae

Skewed figures

In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458. 

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Real estate tokenisation project

Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.

The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.

Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.

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2021 World Triathlon Championship Series

May 15: Yokohama, Japan
June 5: Leeds, UK
June 24: Montreal, Canada
July 10: Hamburg, Germany
Aug 17-22: Edmonton, Canada (World Triathlon Championship Final)
Nov 5-6 : Abu Dhabi, UAE
Date TBC: Chengdu, China

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Fujairah 130 for 8 in 20 overs

(Sandy Sandeep 29, Hamdan Tahir 26 no, Umair Ali 2-15)

Sharjah 131 for 8 in 19.3 overs

(Kashif Daud 51, Umair Ali 20, Rohan Mustafa 2-17, Sabir Rao 2-26)

We Weren’t Supposed to Survive But We Did

We weren’t supposed to survive but we did.      
We weren’t supposed to remember but we did.              
We weren’t supposed to write but we did.  
We weren’t supposed to fight but we did.              
We weren’t supposed to organise but we did.
We weren’t supposed to rap but we did.        
We weren’t supposed to find allies but we did.
We weren’t supposed to grow communities but we did.        
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Amira Sakalla

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Know your cyber adversaries

Cryptojacking: Compromises a device or network to mine cryptocurrencies without an organisation's knowledge.

Distributed denial-of-service: Floods systems, servers or networks with information, effectively blocking them.

Man-in-the-middle attack: Intercepts two-way communication to obtain information, spy on participants or alter the outcome.

Malware: Installs itself in a network when a user clicks on a compromised link or email attachment.

Phishing: Aims to secure personal information, such as passwords and credit card numbers.

Ransomware: Encrypts user data, denying access and demands a payment to decrypt it.

Spyware: Collects information without the user's knowledge, which is then passed on to bad actors.

Trojans: Create a backdoor into systems, which becomes a point of entry for an attack.

Viruses: Infect applications in a system and replicate themselves as they go, just like their biological counterparts.

Worms: Send copies of themselves to other users or contacts. They don't attack the system, but they overload it.

Zero-day exploit: Exploits a vulnerability in software before a fix is found.

The National's picks

4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young

Key facilities
  • Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
  • Premier League-standard football pitch
  • 400m Olympic running track
  • NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
  • 600-seat auditorium
  • Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
  • An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
  • Specialist robotics and science laboratories
  • AR and VR-enabled learning centres
  • Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Specs

Engine: 51.5kW electric motor

Range: 400km

Power: 134bhp

Torque: 175Nm

Price: From Dh98,800

Available: Now

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Cryopreservation: A timeline
  1. Keyhole surgery under general anaesthetic
  2. Ovarian tissue surgically removed
  3. Tissue processed in a high-tech facility
  4. Tissue re-implanted at a time of the patient’s choosing
  5. Full hormone production regained within 4-6 months
Slow loris biog

From: Lonely Loris is a Sunda slow loris, one of nine species of the animal native to Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore

Status: Critically endangered, and listed as vulnerable on the International Union for Conservation of Nature red list due to growing demand in the global exotic pet trade. It is one of the most popular primate species found at Indonesian pet markets

Likes: Sleeping, which they do for up to 18 hours a day. When they are awake, they like to eat fruit, insects, small birds and reptiles and some types of vegetation

Dislikes: Sunlight. Being a nocturnal animal, the slow loris wakes around sunset and is active throughout the night

Superpowers: His dangerous elbows. The slow loris’s doe eyes may make it look cute, but it is also deadly. The only known venomous primate, it hisses and clasps its paws and can produce a venom from its elbow that can cause anaphylactic shock and even death in humans

The specs

Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8

Transmission: seven-speed

Power: 720hp

Torque: 770Nm

Price: Dh1,100,000

On sale: now

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