Perlemoen, in particular. I know a few chaps who used pull out the odd perly when we were younger. It was childish and naive at the time I thought, although I too engaged in other unrelated mischief of my own. Anyway, aquaculture has always fascinated me and the recession did it no favours. This however, might be the new oil.

Fish stocks in Africa are vanishing faster than a time lapse sequence in a movie, Lake Malawi’s stock count being among the saddest, and we’re all aware about sea stocks. In other words we need to act now.

And that is exactly what vet Pierre Hugo started doing way back in 1980. His sons would shepherd buckets of sea water back from the shoreline to refill the tanks Pierre was breeding the abalone in at home in the spare room.

Hugo’s first pilot hatchery started in 1991 and the rest as they say, is history. Now based in the Hermanus harbour, Abagold is an international competitor in the perlemoen export market exporting 278 tons of the total 1000 tons that South Africa sends abroad.

Pierre has also just received a sizeable investment of R52.5 million for his fourth and largest farm from Inspired Evolution’s equity fund. This new farm will produce about 200 tons more.

Managing director Christo du Plessis said it was about creating local employment and combating the war on poaching for Abagold: “We are providing a product in the market that could have been poached.”

Abagold was also seeking further renewable energy and environmental approaches for its operations which will encompass almost 500 employees when the fourth farm is in operation.

Basically, this looks like a good industry to get into if you have some spare cash lying around.

That said, the model of production that fish farms should adopt remains a contentious issue. If you have 2o minutes spare, it’s well-worth catching this TED Talk by Dan Barber on the subject.

[Source: IOL]