Seafood industry
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Seafood is a dynamic, diverse and rapidly evolving industry. It operates in the context of tight regulation, emerging technological sophistication and major sustainability issues. The Australian seafood industry comprises wild-catch fishing, aquaculture and post-harvest sectors and is Australia's fourth most valuable food-based primary industry after beef, wheat and milk.
Seafood Industry Training Package
SFI04During 2003-04, the volume of production increased by 5 per cent to 267,000 tonnes with the value of Australian fisheries production exceeding $2.2 billion GVP. About 30 per cent of the volume of all production is exported. However, 50 per cent of all seafood consumed in Australia is imported. The seafood industry contributes 7 per cent of the gross value of Australian food production (2003-04) and its estimated 45,000 workers are strongly regionally-based.
There is a need to encourage young people to take up careers in fishing, processing, aquaculture, compliance and sales and distribution. The main seafood sectors are:
- Wild-Catch Fishing Operations
- Aquaculture
- Seafood Processing
- Seafood Sales and Distribution
- Fisheries Compliances
- Fishing Charter Operations
Industry sectors:
- Fishing
- Aquaculture
- Seafood processing and seafood sales and distribution
- Fisheries compliance
The seafood industry training package incorporates all commercial activities conducted in or from Australia concerned with harvesting, farming, culturing, processing, storing, transporting, marketing or selling fish and seafood and/or fish and seafood products.
The skills and knowledge required to work in the industry have been captured in competency standards for the four sectors of the seafood industry.
Fishing sector: includes work undertaken by deckhands, fishers, skippers of fishing vessels, managers of fishing operations, business managers, divers and fishing charter operators.
Aquaculture sector: includes work undertaken by field hands, leading hands, technicians, supervisors, quality assurance officers, operations managers and aquaculture business managers. The sector covers temperate and tropical operations and includes pearling and crocodile farms and land-based, water-based and hatchery operations.
Seafood processing and seafood sales and distribution sector: includes work undertaken by basic and skilled process workers, leading hands, distributors, seafood retailers and wholesalers, supervisors, managers and seafood importers and exporters.
Fisheries compliance sector: includes work undertaken by fisheries compliance officers, supervisors, managers and compliance support officers in indigenous Australian communities.
Demand for seafood products in Australia and overseas is predicted to continue to increase. However, with stable production in wild-catch fisheries there is little opportunity to increase tonnage. There is strong pressure on aquaculture to grow to meet the increasing consumer demands for fisheries products.
Profitability is an important consideration for the seafood industry. The industry is facing pressure to lower costs to remain competitive. This pressure has led to cutting costs to achieve efficiencies. There is much debate that the industry must start to grow by value-adding to output. Marketing and differentiation of product are also important factors for success.
A continuing trend is the growth in importance of the aquaculture sector which contributed 34 per cent of total fisheries gross value of production in 2003-04. This is an annual average growth rate of 4 per cent over the last 10 years.
Australia's total exports of fisheries production in 2003-04 were valued in excess of $1.65 billion or over 75 per cent of total value of fisheries production. Rock lobster continued to be the most valuable Australian fisheries product export, followed by pearls and tuna.
Australia is also a major importer of fish products, with imports of $1.1 billion in 2003-04.
Accurate employment figures are impossible to obtain as data collected by the Australian Bureau of Statistics are not disaggregated in sufficient detail to be very useful. The Australian Seafood Industry Council made a conservative estimate that employment in all Australian seafood industry sectors was at least 45,000 in 2004.