Israeli fish farming company AquaMaof Aquaculture Technologies has opened Europe’s largest fish farm in Poland, with help from Polish investors
The 24,000-square-foot facility was inaugurated on September 12 and is expected to produce about 1,200 tons of tilapia, a freshwater fish, annually. The plant cost 12 million euros to build and will be operated by AquaMaof. It is expected to become profitable after five years.
Known in Hebrew as musht and colloquially as St. Peter’s fish, the tilapia fish is a famous native to Israel’s Sea of Galilee. A parable about this fish appears in the Gospel of Matthew as it appears with a coin in its mouth, believed to be a miracle performed by Jesus.
But the St. Peter’s fish is more than “miraculous”: it is an environmental steward –– able to eat weeds, unwanted algae, and other invasive underwater plants. Harvesting them the Israeli way can also be good for keeping lakes, rivers, and cities’ water works clean, the company says.
AquaMaof also recognizes the importance of flexibility in fish farming and has developed technologies so that fish can be bred in changing and variable weather and climate. It can also cut energy input needed to run the farm by 70 percent.
“The new plant makes it possible to produce fish of a uniform size, due to an automatic selection system that grades and counts the fish in each tank, conveying fish from tank to tank and ensuring that each tank cultivates fish of a uniform size, a technology which makes it possible to supply the client with the desired size of fish,” the company announces.
AquaMaof is also developing a large farm in Russia that will provide 500 tons of trout each year in the year 2013; and a project in Romania that will produce sturgeon caviar.
This announcement comes in the wake of a new Israeli fish farm project between Israel, Germany and Kenya to use Israeli fish farm technology to clean the polluted water of Lake Victoria, Africa’s Great Lake located in Kenya and Uganda.