Page 24 - World Aquaculture Magazine - March 2011

22 March 2011
represents 40 percent of all Brazilian production, which was
expected to reach 75,000 t by the end of the year. Most of
that production will be sold in the domestic market, which
realizes higher prices than the export market and is less de-
pendent on currency fluctuations.
Artemia
In Brazil, the brine shrimp Artemia franciscana is found
on a year round and permanent basis in RN as a result of
inoculations made in Macau in April 1977 with cysts from
San Francisco Bay, California U.S.A. Through the years, in-
troduced Artemia dispersed to over 40,000 ha of saltworks
and became an important asset in the development of a suc-
cessful shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei) culture industry in
northeastern Brazil (Camara 2001, Camara et al. 2004). On
a yearly basis, all Artemia biomass and a substantial part of
the cysts used by the Brazilian shrimp culture industry are
harvested in local saltworks in RN.
Prawns
Several attempts have been made in RN to establish
freshwater shrimp farming on a commercial basis. Based on
successful research trials with Macrobrachium rosembergii,
several hatcheries and farms became operational in the late
1980s, but failed to achieve economical sustainability. On
the other hand, three of the most important Brazilian native
species with aquaculture potential are found in RN: Mac-
robrachium amazonicum, Macrobrachium acanthurus and
Macrobrachium carcinus. However, culture studies related to
those species are scarce and have yet to succeed on a com-
mercial scale.
Freshwater fish
Tilapia (Oreochromis spp.) will probably be the first fish to
reach significant commercial aquaculture status in RN. Var-
ious technological approaches for rearing tilapia in ponds
Fig. 1. The State of Rio Grande do Norte (RN), northeastern Brazil.
Native prawn Macrobrachium carcinus. (Photo by Karina
Ribeiro)
Artemia cysts are harvested in local saltworks as a byproduct
of the solar salt industry. (Photo by Marcos R. Camara)