Gyeonggi to put up S. Korea’s first ‘shared fish farm’

The Gyeonggi provincial government has announced a plan to operate South Korea’s first ‘shared fish farm’ that would let residents put up their inland fish farms by opening publicly-owned fish breeding facilities.

The shared fish farm, to be the first of its kind in South Korea, would use a breeding tank for freshwater fish at the Gyeonggi-do Marine and Fisheries Resource Research Institute in Yangpyeong.

The research institute will launch education programs for business incubation next month.

It recently singled out 11 trainees through a public contest for three educational courses with a focus on breeding marsh snails, mandarin fish, and oriental weatherfish.

The trainees will be given a chance to experience various aspects of fish farming, including artificial breeding and management of water quality through theoretical education and field training using the research institute’s breeding facility and tanks.

Those launching a fish farm business after completing the educational course would receive a follow-up service from the institute of up to three years, including instructions on fish farming techniques.

The research institute operates around sixty fish breeding tanks with a size of about 1,096 square meters while carrying out a variety of projects, including research on breeding indigenous freshwater fish, the production and distribution of small fry, and the operation of ecological experience centers.