Since the middle of 1980s, the increasing use of feeds has been the main method of increasing
production for all the finfish species. Trash fish provide the major feed type for marine finfish culture.
Until a few years ago, almost all marine fish farmers used entirely fresh feed, ground or minced, consisting
of a variety of marine fish right after catch or in frozen state. Mackeral and jack mackeral were extensively
used in fish farms.

Meanwhile, the use of formulated feeds are greatly expanded for freshwater and marine fish species
recently.

There were 16 registered fish feed manufacturers in Korea producing 56,540 metric tons of fish feeds in 1988,
and in 2004 the number of registered fish feed manufacturers was 8 producing a total of 97,664 metric tons of fish
feeds (Table 3) (Ministry of Agriculture & Forestry, 2005).

System of fish feed development

In 1993, carp feed occupied more than half of the fish feed production with 52,215 metric tons followed by
13,371 metric tons for eels and 11,527 metric tons for trout. Marine fish feeds, for flounder and rockfish, amounted
to 6,146 and 625 metric tons, respectively. However, the production of carp feed was only 2,315 metric tons in 2002, and the production of fish feed for flounder and rockfish greatly increased to 16,363 and 19,110 metric tons, respectively.

Moist pellets containing higher amount of compound feed keep much higher water stability. It seems desirable
to gradually shift to extruded pellets from the present moist pellets, but with great care if there appears any setback in growth rate of the fish under rearing. If one can use exclusively extruded pellets, the farmers not only help reduce pollution loads with reduced disease outbreak, but also could save the running cost significantly.

Table 1. Aquafeed consumption in Korea^*

Year     Feed		1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004
Raw fish	Sub total	240(88)**	268(86)	287(83)	333(79)	378(85)	393(86)	370(79)
	Domestic	208	148	201	126	200	262	248
	Imported	30	120	86	207	179	131	122
Formulated feed	Sub total	33(12)	43(14)	57(17)	87(21)	66(15)	64(14)	101(21)
	Mash	16	24	34	48	33	30	34
	Pellet	16	19	23	39	33	34	67
Total		273	311	344	420	445	457	471

^*Sources : Ministry of Maritime Affairs & Fisheries (1998～2005)
^**( ) : Percent

Table 2. Aquafeed price in Korea^*

Year   Feed		2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	Remark
Formulated feed	mash	18,000	20,000	20,000	22,000	24,000	900~1200won/kg
	EP	24,000	26,000	28,000	30,000	33,000	1600~2200won/kg
Raw fish	sand lance	5,300	5,200	4,800	5,000	5,200	300~350won/kg
	mackerel	9,000	10,000	10,000	11,000	11,500	450~550won/kg
	anchovy	7,500	8,400	8,700	9,000	9,300	250~350won/kg

^*Sources : Ministry of Maritime Affairs & Fisheries (1998～2005)

Table 3. Aquafeed production of different companies in Korea (2005)^*

^*Sources : Ministry of Agriculture & Forestry (2002)
Table 4. Aquafeed production for different fish species in Korea^*

Status and prospect of aquafeed in Korea

 a. Status of aquafeed

   ○ 1970's: Relied on imported feed and raw-fish based feeds
   ○ Beginning of 80's: Initiated producing eel and carp formulated feeds
   ○ End of 80's: Rapid growth of feeds production due to increased carp culuture as 200% yearly scored 90,000 tonnes of production in 1989 (10 feeds companies)
  ○ Beginning of 90's: Feeds for freshwater culture were certainly dominant than feeds for mariculture
  ○ End of 90's: Feeds for mariculture rapidly increased, also floating net-pens culture on freshwater have been prohibited since 1997
  ○ Year 2000: Feeds for mariculture were absolutely dominant than feeds for freshwater culture
  ○ Year 2005:
    - feeds for mariculture (60,000 tonnes), freshwater culture (36,000 tonnes)
    - feeds for flounder and rockfish are dominant in total production of both culture

b. Problem of developed technique of aquafeed

   ○ Lack of research on aquafeed: Research level comparing other countries is lower
     - In 1980's research on aquafeed was initiated by National Fisheries Research and Development Institute (NFRDI)
     - Preference and effectiveness of aquafeed were lower than raw-fish based feeds

   ○ Low quality aquafeed
     - Few feeds company producing aquafeed mainly than livestock feeds
     - Quality of aquafeed decreased due to competition of price among feeds company
     - Insufficient research on nutritional and economical aquafeed

   ○ Lack of understanding aquaculture in fish famers
    - Prefered using low price aquafeed not properly confirmed   

C. Prospect of aquafeed

  ○ Developing highly effective and environmentally friendly aquafeed is necessary to grow reasonable and stable finfish culture
  ○ Need to publicly assure and inform the merit of formulated feed not raw-fish based feed to reduce rearing period and running expenses
  ○ Fish farmer, feeds company, research institute and academy are encouraged to put their efforts to develop aquafeed

■ Aquafeed Research Center of NFRDI

□ Function

□ Research Goal

  a. Mission

   ο Develop and instruct complete aquafeed to raise competitiveness of aquaculture industry and preserve
coastal area

  b. Necessity of Research

    ο Present aquaculture using raw-fish based feed causes overfishing and loss of feed provoking environmental pollution
   ο It is necessary to develop and instruct environmentally friendly and cost effective aquafeed to preserve coastal area and reduce running expenses

  c. Plan of promotion

    ο Replace raw-fish based feed with complete aquafeed → Raise competitiveness and preserve coastal area       Status and prospect of using aquafeed : 20%(2004)⇒80%(2007)⇒100%(2010)
    ο Improvement of feed coversion ratio : Flounder 1.6→1.1, Rockfish 1.8→1.3
    ο Reduction of running expenses : 20% of direct expenses (US$: 156 million)
         : Feed, incidental expenses (electric power, labour cost etc.)

  d. Priorly promoted objective

     ο Development of practical aquafeed 
        - Flounder, rockfish: Cooperative research, development and industrialization by industry, academy and
research institute
        - Sea breams, sea bass, abalone: Yearly promotion

      ο Standardization of aquafeed
       - Nutritional standard, feeding system, utilisation of ingredients of feed 

      ο Quality control of aquafeed
        - Set quality standard of aquafeed per each species and inspect quality of aquafeed

     ο Raising research environments
        - Supplement of researcher, reinforcement of rearing facility, securing analyzing equipment

f. Yearly schedule

⟩ Research prospect

ο Reinforcement of research on aquafeed for each species
- Academy: nutritional research
- Research institute: develop and apply practical aquafeed
- Industry: develop manufacturing technique

ο Quality control of aquafeed
- Set quality standard
- Establish confidence on aquafeed by quality control
- Research on raising quality of aquafeed

Pilot scale system in ARC	Aqua-farming system in ARC
Developmental cooperation of flounder & rockfish EP diets Analysis of feed quality