Sea Cucumber Farming Could it be Commercially Scalable

For centuries, sea cucumber has been a popular luxury food in the Asian dried seafood market, a super food known for its qualities to help arthritis sufferers, reduces blood clots and even cures cancer.

With prices reaching the USD $3,000 kg mark, some of this valuable Sea Cucumber species have been subject to a pandemic overfishing since the demand exploded in the 1980’s.

Once carpeted the tropical oceans floors, the decline of the sea cucumber stocks has been bad news for the health of coral reefs and other ecosystems as their digestive system have been known to clean up waste, recycle nutrients and prevent water acidification.

With the number of countries exporting sea cucumber food products almost tripled in the past two decades the annual harvest reportedly dropped by 95% in some areas. Out of about 70 known species, 7 are about to be extinced and currently classified as endangered.

Could Aquaculture be the answer to preserving these invaluable creatures and satisfying the constantly increasing demand for Sea Cucumbers in the affluent Chinese market at the same time?

Aquaculture fish farming has been around since the 1950’s but the lag of sustainable and commercially scalable Sea Cucumber culture has been causing difficulties for their investors.

Creating natural habitat for Sea Cucumber sustainable farming has been difficult as many larvey die before even reaching maturity, let alone the fact that some of the most valuable species take 2 to 6 years to reach marketable size.

There are over 50 species of dried sea cucumber products which are currently trading on the market but only larger ones attract a higher price. Therefore most Sea Cucumber culture farms focus their efforts on the larger species such as the Japanese Sea cucumber (Apostichopus japonicus), the SandFish (Holothuria scarba), Golden Sandfish (Holothuria lessoni) and the Teethfish (H.fuscogiva, H. nobilis and H. whitmaei). Prices could vary depending on the size, colour and shape appearance of the species from USD 60 - 70 kg up to USD3,000 per kg dry.

The most important question for those who would like to profit from this lucrative market remains:

Can Sea Cucumber Farming Could it be a Commercially Scalable and Investable Business?

We have invited one of the leading experts in the Fish Farming industry to share his knowledge with us on the latest technology in creating a natural habitat for large scale Sea Cucumbers sustainable farming.