Farming of Sea Cucumbers For Environmentally Friendly Industry
Thursday, August 27, 2009 at 12:40PM Davao, 01 September 2009. Sea cucumbers may be weird marine creatures but to some people, they are delectable.
Across Asia, they have long been a staple in peoples’ diets, mainly in soups, stews and stir-fries. They are highly nutritious – described as “an ideal tonic food” -- as they provide more protein and less fat than most foods. “Like tofu, it is flavorless but absorbs the flavors of its surrounding seasonings and foods,” wrote an epicurean.
Generally, sea cucumbers are sold as trepang, which is easier to store and handle than the fresh product. They are valued as an exotic delicacy and a flavorful condiment for soups, noodles and other dishes. In some parts of Europe, whole bêche-de-mer can be stuffed with a filling of pork, cornstarch and chopped fried fish.
Cooked fresh and quickly on a hot griddle,espardenyes are served with olive, sea salt and a squeeze of lemon in Spain. Like their terrestrial cousins, sea cucumbers can — unsurprisingly, perhaps — also be pickled. In some instances, they are prepared as salads and eaten fresh minus the internal organs.
In other parts of the world, the internal organs of some species like Stichopus variegatus are also fermented for food. To some people, sea cucumbers are more than just food. In fact, there are people who believe sea animals possess some aphrodisiac powers. The reason for this belief is the peculiar reaction of the creature on being kneaded or disturbed slightly with fingers. It swells and stiffens and a jet of water is released from one end. This behavior is similar to the erection and subsequent ejaculation of the male sexual organ.
By the way, people in Palau use the sea cucumber to protect their feet when walking in the reef. They squeeze the sea cucumber until it squirts out sticky threads, which they put on their feet. Even though this practice may sound harsh, the sea cucumber returns to the reef unharmed.
In the Philippines, sea cucumbers are found in burrows, seagrass beds or sandy areas with large amounts of coral rubbles. Some are found in waters of up to 20 meters deep. These can be found off the coastal waters of Zamboanga City; Zamboanga del Sur; Zamboanga del Norte; Basilan Province; Jolo, Sulu; South Cotabato; Surigao del Norte; Villareal and Catbalogan, Samar; Negros Occidental; Cebu; Calatagan, Bangas; Polilio Island, Quezon; Masinloc, Zambales; San Vicente, Cagayan; San Fernando, La Union; Bolinao, Bani and Alaminos, Pangasinan.
For almost a century, the harvesting and processing of sea cucumbers has been a source of income for many Filipino families. As Naga, the publication of the WorldFish Center, reported in 1987: “The steady demand for sea cucumbers from other countries has made sea cucumber harvesting an attractive source of income for many Filipinos. In many islands and coastal villages, the income derived from it constitutes a significant portion of a family’s livelihood.”
Today, sea cucumber is a multi-million dollar industry. In the United States, price rate of dried sea cucumber is pegged at US$180 to US$250 per kilogram. The Philippines is home to 100 species of sea cucumbers, of which 31 are commercially important. “There is a big export market for sea cucumbers particularly for Hong Kong, China, Korea and Japan,” says Dr. Rafael D. Guerrero III, former executive director of the Laguna-based Philippine Council for Aquatic and Marine Research and Development (PCAMRD).
Aside from food, there’s also an emerging market for the use of sea cucumbers in the pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries. Common medicinal uses of sea cucumber in China include treating: weakness, impotence, debility of the aged, constipation due to intestinal dryness, and frequent urination. As demand continues to escalate, the supply dwindles -- to the extent that their population is now in jeopardy.
Sea cucumber stocks are under intense fishing pressure throughout the world, according to a recent report released by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Most high value commercial species have been depleted. In Asia and the Pacific, the most sought-after species are largely depleted. The region generates some 20,000 to 40,000 tons per year, which are exported to China and other Asian markets. Most of them come from Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and the Philippines.
“The fast pace of development of sea cucumber fisheries to supply growing international demand is placing most fisheries and many sea cucumber species at risk,” pointed out the FAO report, Sea Cucumbers: A Global Review of Fisheries and Trade. Sea cucumbers are utilized almost exclusively as an export commodity. This huge export makes the population of sea cucumbers in the country to decline significantly. “Yes, we used to have a lot of sea cucumbers in our coastal areas,” admits Dr. Guerrero. “They have been depleted because of over-harvesting.”
But the good news is: There are now on-going projects for the artificial breeding and culture of sea cucumbers being conducted by the Marine Science Institute (MSI) of the University of the Philippines (UP) in Bolinao, Pangasinan. In Mindanao, the UP is also conducting pond culture of sea cucumber in Davao City, in cooperation with a private entity, the Alson Aquaculture.
In addition, the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) has recently established the country’s first-ever commercial hatchery for sea cucumber to enhance massive raising of the commodity nationwide. The hatchery produces 60,000 “juvenile” sea cucumbers every month, which can be distributed to farmers who are interested in culturing them in fish ponds, or for sea ranching (stocking them in a designated space in the sea for gathering later).
“Sea cucumber is a good material for sea ranching because, based on its behavior, it can travel just one to two meters a day and about one kilometer a year,” the BFAR said in a statement. The mortality rate of cultured juveniles is high. But once they weigh 20 grams and placed in the seafloor or in ponds, the survival rate is almost 100 percent, according to Dr. Westly Rosario, executive director of the BFAR’s National Fisheries Research Development Institute. In a recent report, Northern Luzon news reporter Yolanda Fuertes wrote: “Aside from the initial cost of the juvenile sea cucumbers (P5 each), they are not fed commercial food, depending only on organic matter in the culture pond for nourishment (salinity should be at least 20 parts per thousand) or the sea tidal flats which are their natural habitats.”
Dr. Guerrero said that sea farming of sea cucumbers “can be a profitable and environmentally-friendly livelihood industry for coastal communities.” The PCAMRD, a line agency of the Department of Science and Technology, is supporting such kind of projects.
A study conducted at BFAR showed that it takes six months for the sea cucumber to reach 250 grams, the desired weight in the export market. One hectare of fishpond can accommodate 10,000 sea cucumbers. This means that after six months, a farmer can harvest at least 2.5 tons.
But before they can be exported, they have to be dried first – shrunk to about 10 percent of their live weight. So, the marketable harvest would only be 250 kilograms. At P4,000 per kilogram, the farmer earns a whooping P1 million from his one-hectare pond in six months.
Reader Comments (14)
Please I need an email of any one responsible for sea cucumber industry as I am intersted in this study and I want to ask him more about that.
Thank you
Thanks for this info. I need some more information on the sea cucumber aqua culture and also the types of sea cucumber that could be best raised. How is the dryng method?
thanks so much!!
Hi,
Please find more info about sea cucumber farming from our website.
Hope this helps.
Sholin
Support Officer
Sea cucumber Consultancy
Queensland, Australia
www.seacucumberconsultancy.com.au
Dear Sir
Please kind enough to informe me that more cultivation of
sea cucumber
thanks
Ansaf
0094716392466
e- mail :- ansafmrm@gmail.com
Hi,
I am from almagro samar island province and I do see the potential of sea cucumber farming in our place since I am specifically from the coastal area. Can this be done on small scale? I would appreciate info on how to start and how deep should the water be for the pond. what is the best specie to raise? What are the necessary preparations?Do you conduct a training,for sea cucumber culture
Thanks,
AND I HAVE BEEN READING ABOUT SEA CUCUMBER CULTURE NOW AND THEN. I AM INTERESTED IN TRYING TO REAR SOME JUVENILES THAT I CAN BUY FROM YOUR BREEDING STATION.
HOW CAN I ACCESS INFORMATION THAT CAN BE USEFUL IN MY PLANNED UNDERTAKING, PLEASE?
I need an info how to culture seacucumber.. thanks
and hoping to receive a reply from you
Thanks...
Hi! Hi! I'm interested in breeding sea cucumber.When I was still in elementary we used to collect sea cucumber together with the other sea shells in our province for personal consumption. My relatives in the province are still doing the same thing.
I just resigned from work and am planning of putting up a business. This is my top choice and I would like to equip myself with the right knowledge before starting. Actually I'm looking for seminars on sea cucumber breeding. I would really appreciate it if you can you send me the contact information through olem_forte@yahoo.com. Thank you!
hi sir, i've seen this web page of yours before my mom started her experimental breeding of sea cucumbers, apparently her(sea cucumbers) are nearly 4 months old now.Honestly, one big factor that nearly pull my mom out was the repeated bashing of typhoons along the coast of Pangasinan.
Nevertheless, seeing some still there on the breeding bed/pen now all grown to satisfactory sizes we are getting excited.. Now, as they are getting closer for harvesting age we are a bit apprehensive trying to process them as we may cause more losses than meeting standards of its marketable feature. Somebody suggested to me that there are some buyers of live sea cucumbers, may I ask you Sir to give us any idea where to contact them as we would rather dispose them alive..I do hope you can share us some info about this...
Also, to those who are about to start yet, feel free to email me as we can share you some of the ups and downs of our experimental breeding enabling you to avoid our failures. Saying that, we are still 100 percent focused in continuing this venture to a possible family business in the future.
Hi Mimi! Can you send me your contact info? I'm interested in breeding sea cucumber and would like to ask a few questions, like can they be breed and grown in tanks? Would you be kind enough to share your knowledge about the business? I would really appreciate it if you could send me your contact info. Thank you! olem_forte@yahoo.com
Hi! I am interested in farming of sea cucumbers. I have no idea of how to raise them (sea cucumbers). I live along the coast of an island in Malaita Province of Solomon Islands. I see there is a great potential to venture into this enterprise.
Please contact me via my given email.
Thank you very much.
Francis
Why doesn't someone start a web site dedicated to the commercial farming - in tanks or in the ocean - of sea cucumber? So far as I can see, this industry has huge potential. I could raise a ton of money to finance new operations if I had a good handle of what's involved.
Sea cucumbers are one of the most economically valuable sea resources, especially if sustainably managed, but are one of the first to be wiped out by over-harvesting, as happened throughout the Philippines and Indonesia many centuries ago. Very few places now protect them, such as the Sagay Marine Reserve in Negros Occidental.
Sea cucumbers can easily be grown on a large scale, by setting up hatcheries or by restocking with natural populations, as long as they are managed carefully, providing income forever instead of only once. Hatchery operations alone will not be enough, clever management and propagation of natural populations is also critical. New techniques developed by Pacific Aquaculture Cooperatives (PAC), which I am a scientific advisor to, allow populations to be rapidly restored, and PAC is growing millions of sea cucumbers in Pacific Atolls.
It is very encouraging to hear of the setting up of sea cucumber hatcheries in the Philippines, but so great is the demand for the product, that many more are needed. Besides the groups mentioned in the article and comments, my colleague Guillermo Moreno, now based in Indonesia, is an expert in sea cucumber hatchery operations and is ready to assist any groups that can find the funding needed to start. He can be reached at: guillermo_moreno@hotmail.com
PAC has developed many new methods to greatly expand existing populations. But this will only work where there is the will to manage them properly. One greedy person can quickly wipe them out. So without community-based management programs on a large scale, such projects will not work. In Pacific atolls PAC is growing vast sea cucumber farms, using entire atolls. This requires that the entire population be shareholders and beneficiaries of such projects.
The President of PAC, Erik Hagberg, should be contacted for more information. He can be reached at: ewh@pacinternational.org or at http://www.pacinternational.org/
However he is at the moment out of reach at remote atolls in the central Pacific for a month or more, and can’t respond quickly, so if you email him, please be patient!
Hi! I am interested in farming of sea cucumbers. I have no idea of how to raise them (sea cucumbers). I live in Fiji. I see there is a great potential to venture into this enterprise.
Please contact me via my given email.
Thank you very much.
Jean-Pierre
hi.. please send me any information regarding sea cucumber hatchery and culture.... because we already starting to experiment sea cucumber now but we don't have any idea in terms of farming, hope you can help Please email me thank you!!!
We are interested in farming of sea cucumber. Is it possible to buy sea cucumber juveniles from your company? Please, let us know