Cage aquaculture in Australia: a developed country perspective with reference to integrated aquaculture development within inland waters

Over the last decade, cage culture practices have gained significant prominence in Australian aquaculture. Commercial use of cages within inshore coastal waters predominantly includes the farming of Atlantic salmon, Salmo salar, and southern bluefin tuna, Thunnus maccoyii, with a collective production of 12,000 tons worth almost AUD$150 million per annum. To a lesser extent rainbow trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss, and a number of new and developing species are also new being cultured in cage at sea, including snapper, Pagrus auratus, black bream, Acanthopagus butcheri, and mulloway Argyrosomus halolepidotus. Existing commercial use of cages for aquaculture within Australia inland waters is primarily restricted to barramundi, Lates calcarifer, farming the freshwater lakes and purposely built freshwater farm ponds. However, despite such limited application to date, and indeed despite Australia's relatively arid environment, there is considerable potential for aquaculture development within inland waters in which novel, cage culture practices may be applied on an integrated basis with irrigated farming systems. Trials utilizing relatively small floating cages as a principal culture system component, are presently underway in a range of developmental systems which demonstrate the integration of aquaculture and irrigated agriculture to enhance farm productivity and water use efficiency, and the use of otherwise wasted aquatic resources such as inland saline groundwater and industrial and domestic effluent.