Indonesia pivoting toward aquaculture to enhance its world-leading tuna production

Editor/Mohamed Shihab

Indonesia is among the top global producers in the aquaculture sector, undergoing 527 percent growth from 1990 to 2018. However, its production has declined from a high of 16.1 million MT in 2017 to 14.6 million MT in 2021, according to FAO statistics.

Indonesia earned approximately USD 6.2 billion (EUR 5.67 billion) from its exports of fishery and marine products in 2022, with shrimp accounting for USD 2.2 billion (EUR 2 billion) in exports in 2021, making it Indonesia’s most valuable seafood export. Farming tuna in bays around the country would align with the national goal of reaching USD 7.6 billion (EUR 6.9 billion) in seafood exports in 2023. Indonesian President Joko Widodo has become a more vocal proponent of enlarging Indonesia’s aquaculture production. In 2019, at the beginning of his second term in office, he directed the country’s fisheries ministry to prioritize aquaculture productivity efforts.

Expanding on these efforts, the ministry is now considering establishing tuna farms in several of the country’s bays, conservation news web portal Mongabay reported.

“This can be a good thing if ...