Doha, Qatar: Aquatic Research Center at Ras Matbakh has revolutionised fish farming sector of Qatar as it produced over 8 million baby fish during past three years to ensure food security in the country, said a top official.
The centre run by Fish Affairs Department of the Ministry of Municipality is producing fingerlings of local fish for releasing in Qatari water and providing to fish farms for fattening.
“We produced 8 million fingerlings of local fish from 2020 to 2022. About 6 million fingerlings out of them were released in the sea,” said Director of Aquatic Research Center, Ibrahim Salman Al Muhannadi.
Speaking to Al Rayan TV, he said that 1.2 million fingerling of Sha’m fish and 50,000 fingerlings of Hamour fish were provided to Samakna, a fish farming project in floating cages offshore in the northern part of the country.
“As many as 1.4 million (PL 20) shrimp larvae were given to Agrico Shrimp Farm far fattening,” said Al Muhannadi.
He said that supplying baby fish to local farms is part of the support from the Fish Affairs Department of the Ministry of Municipality.
“Aquatic Research Center has succeeded in producing the best quality Hamour and Sh’am fish in the GCC. We also produced Sebaiti and Al Safi. Now we are working on producing Al Shagra fish,” said Al Muhannadi.
He said that a new contract was signed with operator of Aquatic Research Center to produce 300,000 fingerlings of Hamour fish in a year for fattening. Speaking about the releasing fingerlings in the sea, he said that a research project will be launched by next month to assess the need of fingerlings for fish stock in the sea.
“Aquatic Research Center is the largest project of fish farming in Qatar comprising with research units for marine life and fish farming,” said Al Muhannadi.
He said that the center is conducting research work, producing fingerlings of fish and releasing them in the sea to ensure fish stock in the sea and provide fingerlings to fish farms for fattening to ensure food security in the country.
“We have two hatcheries for fish and shrimp which are equipped with most advanced technologies on the international level,” said Al Muhannadi.
He said that fish hatchery is working with a closed intensive system, Recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) and shrimp hatchery is working with Biofloc technology.
“Aquatic Research Center at Ras Matbakh has emerged the largest farming project for Hamour fish in Gulf region with the capacity of one million fingerlings in a year,” said Al Muhannadi.
He said that plans are afoot to expand the facility of the center to build bigger ponds to increase the production capacity and set up a model farm for research purpose.
