2.1 Historical Aspects
2.2 Current Status
2.3 Impact on National Economy
The pisciculture history in China began in the late stage of the Shang Dynasty (c. 16th-11th centry B. C.). The earliest record is seen in inscriptions on bones or tortoise shells of the Shang Dynasty. It was recorded that the Emperor in Shang Dynasty grazed different kinds of animals, and also bred a large quantity of fish and soft-shelled turtles in the garden, which were used for sacrifices offered to gods or ancestors. In fact, success in rearing fish has something to do with the accumulated experience in breeding animals. At that time, animal husbandry was well-developed. Horse, cattle, sheep, pig and chicken were already bred artificially. The accumulated experience of breeding animals in land was expanded to fish in water. So in the ancient literature, fish was called water animal. In the Westren Zhou Dynasty (c. 11th-771 B.C.), it was discovered that in 1137 B.C. the Emperor Zhouwenwang ordered his slaves to dig a fish pond in the animal farm. It is the earliest record of artificial fish pond, which was located somewhere in Haizecun Village, Changan County, Shaaxi Province.
The monograph “On Pisciculture”, written by Fan Li in 460 B.C., is the world’s first paper on aquaculture. In this not very long monograph, pond area, depth, structure for common carp culture, and selection of parent fish, proportion of male and female, stocking time, mixed culture of large and small fish, and harvest in rotation, etc. were expounded. At the same time, he pointed out that profits gained from fish farming ranked first among the trades of the same kind. It is thus evident that people then accumulated rich and valuable experience in culturing common carp in ponds and it also shows the social and economic position of aquaculture at that time.
In the Three Kingdoms (220-265), raising fish in paddy field began in Pi County of Sichuan Province. In the late period of the Tang Dynasty (618-907), freshwater fish culture made a breakthrough progress, developing from common carp culture it extended to black carp, grass carp, silver carp and bighead carp culture. At the same time, methods of capturing, packaging and transporting of fish fry, developed during the North Song Dynasty (960-1127) helped in the promotion of aquaculture. In particular, aquaculture in the Yangtze River valley flourished vigorously. During the same period, artificial breeding of pearls was recorded, indicating that China has a history of pearl culture for nearly one thousand years.
In the Ming Dynasty and Qing Dynasty, freshwater fish culture achieved a remarkable development, particularly in the Pearl River Delta and Taihu Region. Some fish culture speciality households and regions were found in some parts of Jiangsu, Hunan, Hubei, Guangdong and Zhejiang provinces. In these regions, fish culture developed from sideline production to an independent specialized business in the countryside, showing the characteristic of commodity production. Fish culture techniques made great progress then, particularly the culture practices of black carp, grass carp, silver carp and bighead carp. A series of theories were propounded with respect to seed selection, site determination, pond building, feed and feeding, toxin elimination and disease control. In particular, an unique mode of production and culture practice with fruitful benefits were created through mixed culture and integrated culture.
In marine aquaculture, China has a 2 000-year history of rearing oyster, and carried out transplantation of oyster 900 years ago. In the Northern Song Dynasty, records of culture of oyster in banboo enclosure already existed. In the Ming Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty, large-scale oyster cultures were established. It was recorded that in a mudflat of about 20 km long on the sea shore of Luoyuan County and Xiapu County people used bamboo stakes for rearing oyster. However, in Dongwan County, the area for rearing oyster reached 200 ha or so. According to the record made in 1182, 1 130 ha mudflat along the coast in Fuzhou was used to culture razor clam. In the year of 928, laver was treated as tributes in Pingtan County of Fujian Province. In the Qing dynasty, a large stretch of mudflat was used to rear blood clam in Haifeng County of Guangdong Province, for there was little farmland along the sea shore. Rearing blood clam brought people there a good income. At least two or three hundred years ago, people in Haifeng, Shantau and Zhanjiang counties of Guangdong Province already made use of harbours, bays and low-lying mudflat along the coast to build dykes and sluice gates for reserving fish, shrimp and crab seeds which came in with high tide water. As many as several dozens of species were cultured extensively, but mainly mullet and sea bream.
After the founding of the New China in 1949, With the restoration and development in agricultural production and rural economy, fisheries including aquaculture was restored and grew rapidly. Up to 1952, the total fisheries output in the whole country reached 1.66 million mt (the maximum yearly output before the founding of the New China was 1.5 million mt), of which freshwater aquacultural output went up to 136 000 mt, marine aquaculture output approached 60 000 mt. Compared with 1949, the proportion in the total fisheries output increased by more than 2.5 times. Owing to the fact that the government encouraged fishermen and farmers to develop aquaculture, in 1957, freshwater aquaculture area in the country rose to 1.05 million ha, a rise 1.8 times over 1954; and marine aquacultural area reached 59 757 ha, a rise of 1.4 times over 1954.
Through the efforts made by fisheries technicians for several years, the technique of artificial propagation of silver carp and big head carp succeeded in 1958, followed by the technique of artificial propagation of black carp and grass carp. Thus the development of freshwater aquaculture was no longer dependent upon natural fry as the only source of seed. Freshwater cultured area further increased by 35.4%, reaching 1.43 million ha in 1958. In the same year, artificial breeding and culture of kelp in the southern coastal area succeeded. Kelp culture developed widely from the north to the south. The production of dried kelp in 1952 was only 263 mt, in 1958 increased to 6 106 mt and in 1959 reached 23 886 mt.
Owing to policy errors of the government, serious food shortage occurred during 1959-1962. In many places, people reclaimed land from lakes and ponds for planting crops. Fisherman's grain ration was reduced and an acute fish feed shortage occurred. As a result of these factors, aquaculture was forced to decline. In 1961, culture pond area was only 470 266 ha as against 663 600 ha in 1957, a drop of 25.9%. Lake culture area decreased from 672 000 ha in 1959 to 391 333 ha; freshwater aquaculture output came down from 596 000 mt in 1959 to 315 000 mt in 1962, a drop of 47.1%; marine aquaculture area declined from 102 200 ha in 1959 to 498 300 ha, a drop of 51.2%. From 1960s through late 1970s, aquaculture development suffered due to many reasons, including socio-political changes that took place during the Cultural Revolution.
However, dramatic growth and development of aquaculture during the last twenty years was made possible by the introduction of policies related to the development of market economy and the introduction of responsibility contract system of production. Because of new incentives, by 1997 aquacultural area in the country reached 5 892 770 ha, of which freshwater culture area and mariculture area stood at 4 954 837 ha and 937 933 ha respectively. There were 3 292 497 full-time labourers engaged in freshwater aquaculture and 547 177 in mariculture. In addition, there were millions of part-time labourers and hundreds of thousands of rear-service personal. The total aquaculture output reached 20 276 988 mt in 1997, of which freshwater aquaculture was 12 366 559 mt and marine aquaculture was 7 910 429 mt, a rise of 15.73, 15.22 and 16.6 times respectively over 1978. These productions include 1 266071 mt produced by state-run enterprises, of which 1 019 323 mt was from freshwater aquaculture and 246 748 mt was from mariculture. The output of the newly-developed industrial aquaculture in recent years, such as indoor and/or running water high-density intensive fish culture (eel, trout, tilapia, etc.) and abalone culture, was very little, at most several thousand tons a year, and the definition of industrial aquaculture is still a subject of dispute. The Chinese aquaculture as a whole is still operated by small-scale farming households, communities or state-run enterprises, usually with extensive or semi-intensive low-cost production technology appropriate to their resource base. However, it is still a typical traditional rural aquaculture.
It can be seen from many fisheries statistical tables of the early stages of the founding the People's Republic of China, only marine and freshwater capture output figures were listed in the tables, as the total yearly fisheries production of China. In fact, marine and freshwater aquaculture already existed, but it was only because their outputs were little and scattered, it was difficult to obtain accurate figures, therefore they were simply included in capture output. Obviously, at that time aquaculture output was regarded as of little importance, to say nothing of the impact on rural economy, and was even ignored in fisheries. Now marine and freshwater aquaculture output figures of the early stage listed in the Table 1 were estimated by the experts concerned in accordance with references from different sources. It is obvious that they are rough figures. Since 1954, aquaculture output has been estimated more accurately, and its proportion in fisheries output has been steadily increasing, from less than 4.5% in 1949 to 26% in 1978. In 1988, it increased to 50.2%. For the first time, it exceeded the capture output. In 1997, the marine aquaculture output was 7 910 429 mt; freshwater aquaculture output was 12 366 559 mt. Aquaculture output exceeded 20 million mt, representing 56.3% of the total fisheries output (Table 3). However, fisheries is increasing at the fastest rate among the various agricultural sub-sectors. Its share in the total agricultural production value is on the rise (Table 3). In 1997, the total fisheries production value was 2 458.77 billion yuan, amounting to 9.3% of the total agricultural production value (Table 10). The role played by aquaculture, which has accounted for over 50% in the total fisheries production and output value, is perfectly obvious, and steadily on the increase. Foreign exchange earnings from export of aquaculture products was substantial. In 1997, the export of aquatic products reached 929 000 mt with a total value of US$ 3.14 billion, most of which was from the export of high value aquaculture products.
In 1997, about 3.3 million full-time labourers were engaged in aquaculture. They together with several hundred thousands of full-time rear-service personal and several millions of part-time labourers had produced more than 20 million mt aquatic products. Aquaculture provided jobs for millions of rural labourers. Hundred of thousands in tens of villages lived on income derived from aquaculture. Thus, it became an important economic activity producing fish as food, providing employment and income and earning foreign exchange. Its impacts on the rural socio-economic life is clearly visible.
China has a vast territory with a large population but less farmland. The Chinese population makes up one fourth of the world total, but the farmland is only 7% of the world total area. It is impossible to expand farmland area by a big margin due to the limitations of natural conditions. The government has taken measures to control population growth, but the population is still increasing year by year. In China, inland waters suitable for aquaculture is about 6.75 million ha, shallow sea water area and mudflat suitable for aquaculture is about 2.6 million ha, which together make up about 10% of the total agriculture cultivated land area. Rational exploitation of these waters through the development of aquaculture has become a prime objective of the country’s development plan. So far as fisheries itself is concerned, capture fisheries is limited by natural resources, and thus sustainable increase is also limited. During 1978-1997, capture fisheries output only increased by 3.57 times, while aquaculture output increased by 15.73 times. Development of aquaculture is expected to reduce the pressure on capture fisheries and other aquatic resources.
