Trout farming back on table

Christchurch consultant Norman Moe has been involved in trout farming in Chile for decades and would set up a New Zealand farm tomorrow if he could.

The debate over trout farming has been reignited recently, with Federated Farmers pushing for the long-established ban to be lifted with claims New Zealand is missing out on hundreds of millions of dollars in exports.

But the ban has been strongly defended by the New Zealand Fish and Game Council, which says removing the ban would leave wild trout stock vulnerable to poaching and decease.

Moe is now semi-retired but in the early 90s worked for the since- disestablished company NZ Salmon setting up salmon farms in Chile.

Like many other fish farms in Chile at the time, NZ Salmon diversified into Rainbow trout, an export market that grew quickly.

Rainbow trout became the farm's second most lucrative product, after Atlantic salmon, and the farm was soon exporting everywhere from Japan to the United States.

Moe said rainbow trout exports in Chile had exploded into a billion- dollar industry and rainbow trout could potentially earn New Zealand hundreds of millions if the ban was lifted.

"It is very economical," he said. "They are produced at less cost than salmon and they are one of the most hardy fish species."

Predictably, Moe has his feet squarely in Federated Farmers' camp and said many of the Fish and Game Council's concerns were unfounded.

"The argument is since it's a sports fish it should always be a sports fish."

New Zealand trout farms could source seed trout stock from New Zealand wild trout, meaning there was no risk of decease from overseas sourced fish, he said.

Claims trout farming could lead to more poaching and a black market industry were also unjustified because wild trout were easily distinguishable from farmed trout, he said.

In trout farms overseas, the fish were fed a natural red pigment, the same given to salmon, turning the meat a deep red contrasting with the white meat of wild trout.

There were also bigger and tastier, he said.

"You rarely find a wild trout in the same condition as a farm trout. Why would you want to eat a wild trout when you've could have a farm trout?"

While salmon farming in New Zealand was somewhat limited because it was restricted to sheltered bays, trout could be farmed in fresh water locations more protected from the wind, he said.

"I have a few locations in mind."

Unsurprisingly, Moe's arguments have not convinced the Fish and Game council.

Council spokesman Ric Cullinane said he had caught healthy red- coloured wild trout in Lake Taupo last summer.

"Wild trout in good condition do have that desirable colour," he said. "Poaching that exists for personal use already consumes a lot of resources. If there's commercial value that's inevitably going to increase."

Sourcing farm trout from within New Zealand was not a fail-safe way to avoid decease because concentrated populations inevitably breed disease.

"A lot of diseases already exist here but they are not a problem because of the nature of the environment."

"When you get a whole lot of species together there is the risk of disease and mutation."

- © Fairfax NZ News