Jelawat (Leptobarbus hoevenii), a kind of wild fish species born in Malaysia, recently caught public attention inside the fishery industry after it achieved successful artificial farming in Guangdong province, which would be promoted in the whole nation in future. The fish can be used both as edible fish and ornamental fish, which is highly recognized in Malaysia, ranked as the second high price edible river fish. It’s known that the market price for 2, 000-35, 000g chilled fresh wild jelawat is as high as about 200 yuan/500g.
Successfully hatched in Guangdong province and the first batch of fry went to market
In Malaysia, the artificial breeding and farming field of jelawat is still completely blank, mainly relying on wild fish. If it can be introduced into China and realizes extensive farming, the profit would be huge and the market would be promising.
In 2001, Zhejiang Province Freshwater Aquaculture Research Center introduced the jelawat fry and successfully hatched a small amount of fish fry in 2004, which, however, wasn’t promoted in large scale. In 2010, a fry farm in Foshan, Guangdong province brought in 3, 000 parent fish to try to hatch and breed jelawat fry. It successfully hatched 3, 400 5cm size fry for the first time in October 2015.
In May, breakthrough was made in fry production that the first batch reached several hundreds of thousands in quantity. And the market reacted extremely positively, leading to short fry supply. Up to now, the fry farms have sold more than 300, 000 fry, whose average size is 5cm, priced at 3 yuan each.
Jelawat fish might become one of the most popular farming species
Chen jieming, the marketing director from one fry farms Foshan, stated that the farms had already sent the fish to China Certification and Accreditation Administration to conduct comprehensive meat quality analysis, whose report will be available by then end of this month. At present, the fry farms are preparing to attend Guangzhou Bazhou Aquatic Product Exhibition to be held by the end of August. The farms priced the Jelawat between the mandarin fish and largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides).
He also believed that the Jelawat would become the popular farming species next year. It belongs to omnivorous fish species, which can be easily raised and also enjoys higher cost performance, compared with other high-end freshwater fishes. Although the flesh quality of the farmed fish might drop, but the price would be kept at high level, whose farming profit was also relevantly high. “We think highly of the fish’s future. The farms, therefore, plan to hatch more than 10, 000, 000 fry next year,” Chen jieming added.
