宏都拉斯吳郭魚(Oreochromis spp.)養殖產業之競爭力分析

Abstract

The global aquaculture industry currently contributes nearly half of the world’s seafood consumptions, and represents the main potential to respond the growing demand for food and economic needs. Among the various main aquaculture species, the tilapia (Oreochromis spp.) is one of the popular and high economic value species in global aquaculture industry. All the developing countries which increase in tilapia culture, The Republic of Honduras is one of the high economic growth countries in tilapia industry development. Moreover, Honduras is the largest tilapia producers in Central America. The main objective of this study was to understand the current production status and operating costs of tilapia culture in Honduras through survey. Results indicated that the tilapia farms may divide into four scale levels in Honduras. Furthermore, farm size ranged from 1 to 5 hectares, which employed five or less farm workers throughout the production cycle by earthen ponds and cage culture in monoculture systems. Fish fry were mostly purchased from other culture farm. The use of commercial feed was significantly higher than natural bait or homemade feed. Length of the culture cycle was less than six months. In addition, produce can directly contacted with buyers and regular customers. Therefore, most farmers are not considering to change their jobs. Furthermore, this research method uses the Michael Porter’s diamond model to evaluate that the most important barriers of Hondurans tilapia trade including the related and supporting industries and government factors. The results demonstrate that, the major costs of tilapia aquaculture production are feed (63.76 to 78.33%), fry (5.29 to 8.81%), and labors (4.51 to 10.98%). The conclusions, of this study suggest that future aquaculture policies could be based on these study results, with an emphasis on the associated measures of farming cost management for the farmers and formulate specific industrial policy which would benefit Hondurans tilapia industry for sustainable development.