The Fisheries Research and Development Corporation (FRDC) and other Australian governments invested substantially in research, demonstration and coordination to identify, evaluate and facilitate commercialisation for inland saline aquaculture in Australia in the early 2000s. Other investment in inland saline aquaculture occurred in several other countries, e.g. USA, Israel and India.
This investment has led to significant industry development in some areas (e.g. India) but commercial progress in Australia has been slow. There is renewed interest in inland saline aquaculture and new investment has been proposed.
Why did commercial inland saline aquaculture work in some areas but not others? Are there common features that might help predict which ventures are more likely to succeed? Despite numerous comprehensive reports and publications from previous work, many of the previous outputs have not been digitised and are difficult to access for a new generation of scientists, policy makers and farmers who are interested in exploring opportunities for inland saline aquaculture. Are we at risk of repeating the mistakes of the past?
The FRDC and NSW DPI seek to address this problem by making sure previous information is readily available, to review why commercial opportunities failed to eventuate, and to examine if recent developments present new opportunities for inland saline aquaculture and, if so, how to best realise those opportunities.