TerraSan Directors Visit Aquafarm Some of the TerraSan directors visited Aquafarm on 12 March 2009.

Seen on the photo is (fltr) Christo de Wit (Vice Chairman,TerraSan Ltd), Adri Claassen (Production Manager, Aquafarm), Shane Hewitt (MD, TerraSan Ltd), Dr Eltie Links (Chairman, TerraSan Ltd), Rowan Yearsley (R&D Manager Aquafarm) and André du Plessis (CEO - Mariculture, TerraSan Group)

The scale of world's mariculture production is huge and there can be no doubt of its importance in providing high quality seafoods, jobs and general economic benefits throughout the world. The abalone industry in South Africa is divided into two segments, namely the wild fisheries and the cultivated abalone. The wild fishery industry has been in existence for the past 40 years and the Total Allowable Catch (TAC) has been decreasing drastically over the past few years. The cultivated abalone industry started in the early 1990's and commercial quantities have been produced since the late 1990's. Currently 100% of the cultivated abalone is produced for the export market. The main market for the abalone products is the Far East countries. The largest portion of production is sold on the live market and the balance on the canned market.

Aquafarm Development (Pty) Limited started operations in 1995 with an abalone farm in Hermanus. From the outset, this farm has had the benefit of experience as well as solid financial backing. Today, Aquafarm can be regarded as the absolute leader in South African abalone farming and a front runner in the world.

The aquafarm was started after hatchery technology for the abalone species in question had basically been researched and established, so it was therefore able to commence with production based on seed which was bought from other hatcheries.

The hatchery was developed in parallel to a successful production strategy and Aquafarm was able to fully market their product after only 2½ years from commencement. This is really unusual as the full growth cycle for an average 100 gram cocktail abalone is 4 years!

Aquafarm Development has developed into a vertically integrated company with a strong body of expertise in technology development, production management and marketing. Through careful development of relationships with importers in the far eastern countries and control over quality of our products, a very valuable channel for exports has been established.

Farmed abalone is still seen as a new product in a very traditional market and, especially with the drastic weakening of Asian economies, the demand is not growing fast enough. A lot of competition is also experienced with other farmed abalone producing countries like Australia, the United States and Chile, to mention a few. A newly formed company in the group, Midae Marketing (Pty) Ltd is handling the marketing of farmed abalone not only for Aquafarm Development and HIK Abalone Farm, but also for other interested abalone farms.