Professor of the Faculty of Agriculture, Prof. Dr. Ir. Dwidjono Hadi Darwanto, S.U, said there is quite large deficit of fishery production in Yogyakarta. The high needs for fish is not accompanied by adequate fish production. “Fish consumption per capita in the province is actually relatively far below the standards of the world's food agency. However, a fairly large deficit still occurs. In fact, from year to year the community fish consumption has increased," said Dwidjono on Thursday (23/9), in the Faculty of Agriculture UGM.
Data from Statistics Office, Department of Fisheries and Marine Resources in 2008 showed that fish consumption in the province is only 17.03 kg/capita/year; while the FAO standard is 25.03 kg/capita/year. The annual need of fish has reached 59,068.7 tons, while the annual fish production just reached 17,764.6 tons. "So, the deficit amounts to -41,303.98 tons of fishery products per year," said Dwidjono in a seminar entitled Integrated Development of Agriculture-Fishery in Yogyakarta Special Province.
Dwijono gave an example the need for consumption of catfish here reaches 15 tons per day while the daily production is only about 5 to 6 tons. "Current fish production has been only able to meet less than half the demand for fish. Thus, efforts are needed in order to increase fish production to meet the overall needs, "he explained.
Furthermore, Dwidjono said that aquaculture development is one effort that can be done to meet the need. But, the development of aquaculture is still constrained by the limited areas because of the quite high rate of conversion of agricultural areas.
Integrated fishery development is also confronted with environmental issues. Breeding fish in general will cause the eutrophication of aquatic environment. "Breeding fish usually cause water pollution due to organic waste in the forms of fish feces and food remains," he explained.
Dwidjono added, only 25% of nitrogen in the fish feed could be converted into meat, while the rest is wasted to the environment. In fact, the fish feed containing quite high protein content about 30%, as a result, in fish breeding wastes there are lot of nitrogen in the form of ammonia, nitrate, and nitrite. "High levels of nitrogen in water in fact become toxic to fish," explained Dwidjono.
Dr. Ir. Triyanto, M.Sc., lecturer of Fisheries program study, Faculty of Agriculture, conveyed that Sleman and Kulon Progo are two areas that are potential for development of integrated fishery due to their already developed fish business.