Lobster Production Targeted to Increase for 10%

Lobster Production Targeted to Increase for 10%

JAKARTA – Maritime and Fishery (KP) Ministry targeted lobster marine culture will increase for 5-10% from this year. In this year and the previous years, the fishery commodity reaches 10 tons. To realize the target, KP Ministry keeps promoting lobster marine culture.

Fishery Marine Culture Director General, Slamet Soebajakto, said Indonesia’s opportunity to boost lobster production is very great since Indonesia is a number one lobster seed producer in the world so seed supply availability is overflowing in the nature. “Next year, we want to increase the production for 5-10%,” he told Investor Daily in Jakarta last week.

He admitted lobster marine culture realization in Indonesia still needs many supports like lobster food which is expensive. Annual production is only 5-10 tons and this year, from 10-ton production target, only 72% is fulfilled until QIII of 2014. “Fish food namely fish flour still depends on import. Meanwhile, rucah fish as the main component is not available equally and its price is expensive especially in Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara which can reach IDR 15 thousand per kilogram from the common price of IDR 3 thousand per kilogram,” he said.

Responding this problem, identifying potential land for lobster marine culture is deemed as the best solution so seed distribution will not only focus on an area. “Lobster marine culture development is hampered by food so as an alternative option, we will keep identifying marine culture area which is eligible for lobster. Moreover, we also look for the area having overflowing and low-cost rucah fish supply,” Slamet said.

KP Ministry’s Fishery Marine Culture Directorate General Production Director, Coco Kokarkin, said people still do not want to be lobster cultivators which hardly increase lobster production. Lombok people, for example, tend to sell lobster seeds than to work on marine culture. “In a month, they can obtain IDR 1.5-4 million. In a normal condition, the price of a lobster seed as big as a finger joint is IDR 15-24 thousand so selling seed is more profitable,” he said,

Besides obtaining instant profit, lobster seed demand is also high especially from Vietnam. However, currently, Vietnam becomes the world’s number one lobster producer with the annual production of 100 tons from 3,000 floating ponds. Currently, KP Ministry tries to boost step-father system in West Nusa Tenggara. If it works, small-scale cultivators as the result of the system is expected to be the pioneer of great-scale lobster cultivators. (Investor Daily)