A long-cherished dream of creating a multi-million dollar industry growing tilapia fish in sea water here – as against the customary fresh-water pond – appears now to be only a signature away from reality.

The Environmental Foundation of Jamaica (EFJ) is in the final stages of its due diligence before its expected approval of an application for a US$220,000 grant requested by the Mona Institute of Applied Sciences (MIAS) at the University of the West Indies (UWI).

MIAS, based on advanced research and the project’s proven commercial prospects, was confident the grant would get the nod from the EFJ, which seeks funds for environmentally-sound projects.

“I think that we are very near to demonstrating that a non-carnivorous fish can be grown at high density in the sea in the tropics and at relatively low cost,” marine biologist, Dr Russell Steele, declared in triumph.

Steele started the research into the rearing of tilapia in sea water 17 years ago as the then professor in the Department of Life Science at the UWI, and continues to make his considerable experience available to the Mona Institute of Applied Sciences which took it over three years ago.

Anticipating the grant, MIAS head, Dr Howard Reid, told the Sunday Observer: “Once we have completed the (two-year) pilot projects, we have several options. We can get a venture capital partner or contract farmers to whom we license the technology and have the UWI earn from that.”

Reid and other likely investors are especially excited about the potential earnings that could come from growing tilapia in sea water, given Jamaica’s proximity to the huge United States market for the fish.

In the US, tilapia consumption has been growing at mega proportions since 1992 when commercial importation of the fish began. American consumption of tilapia is currently over 100 million pounds and is expected to exceed 400 million pounds per year by 2005, according to figures from the US Bureau of Fisheries.

In fact, tilapia is now the third largest imported aquaculture product entering the US, following just behind farm-raised shrimp and Atlantic salmon.

Another prospect which has fired up the researchers is the fact that the technology being developed gives the tilapia the kind of taste the very discriminating Jamaicans like their fish to have – much like that of sea water fish.

Reid said that EFJ funds would be used to set up pilot projects at two of the 17 bays across the island that have been deemed suitable – by the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) – to fine-tune the technology that is being used to rear tilapia in sea water and to ascertain, in real terms, the financial viability of such an endeavour.

“We want to run it just like a business so that when we get an investor we can then have the economics of it,” he said.

Steele began the research work nearly two decades ago, the scope of the work being modest compared with today.

He retired from the UWI last year after 36 years, having also served as head of the Department of Zoology and as a lecturer in a range of undergraduate courses, as well as supervisor for post-graduate students pursuing studies to become masters and doctors of philosophy.

“I first started work on tilapia around 1987 or so with my first graduate student, Robin Hall, who investigated the tolerance to salinity of the two types of tilapia which were being farmed in Jamaica at the time – the Oreochromis niloticus (the silver tilapia) and the red hybrid tilapia,” Steele recalled.

A study into the island’s aquaculture industry that was conducted by the FAO around 1993 came later, lending relevance to Steele’s work. That study revealed that Jamaica – unlike countries such as Costa Rica and Guyana – did not have sufficient bodies of fresh water to sustain an aquaculture industry.

Moreover, the study indicated that Jamaica’s fresh water aquaculture was already fully developed, with hardly any room for commercially successful expansion.

It was therefore recommended that the island should set about studying marine cage culture with respect to marine species, and possibly tilapia, and/or identify alternative fresh water and or brackish water tilapia culture systems.

Approximately US$500,000 has already been spent on the tilapia study.

“The main benefit of this research is that if fresh water supplies became scarce or expensive, we could farm tilapia in sea water,” said Steele, drawing on his 14 years of research work.

MIAS assumed responsibility for the project shortly after opening in October of 2001, taking special interest in the commercial possibilities. Since then, work on the project has progressed considerably and to the point where there are now but a few kinks to iron out.

“There are still issues in terms of the cage culture. But basically, the pilot project will take care of that,” Reid said confidently, adding that the strides made so far had been significant.

The fish, he said, had been acclimatised to growth in salt water, through cages at sea and via inland tanks. The team of researchers had also been able to handle the troublesome parasite, neobenedines melleni, that has been known to blind or even kill the tilapia.

Reid noted that growing tilapia in sea water had other advantages, such as the fact that the sea water-bred fish were found to be less aggressive, conserved their energy more and so achieved accelerated growth rates.

There was also a higher meat to bone ratio in sea water-grown tilapia and its taste could be equated to that of the snapper, but “with more meat”.

Reid said the taste should go over well with Jamaicans who had, in the past, avoided tilapia consumption on grounds that it lacked the special or otherwise unique taste of sea-grown species.

The MIAS head complained that Jamaica had not been able to be a contender in the international market, despite the vast potential for tilapia exports, due mainly to uncompetitive production costs.

“Jamaican tilapia producers are not competitive. Production cost per kilo of fish, at the most efficient farms in Jamaica, run between US$1.40 and US$1.90, whereas costs range from US$0.90 to US$1.40 in Latin America. In East Asia, they produce at between US$0.70 and US$1.20 per kilo,” said Reid.

All that should change with the advent of sea-grown tilapia.

“This technology shows the potential to have us produce at US$1 per kilo, which automatically makes us competitive,” he said.

So successful has the research been that praedial thieves had been preying on the project, Steele said. The expanded project has since been moved from its original site in Discovery Bay, St Ann to Port Royal.

Steele said the grant would also be used to overcome challenges such as a shortage of finance and the difficulty in getting “good graduate students” who were interested in that area of research.

Meanwhile, the plan is that any earnings from the research – through the sale of the technology or otherwise – will be pumped back into the university, and more particularly, the Faculty of Applied Sciences, which is home to the institute.