MORE of the fish you eat could be grown here over the next few years.

Researchers at a $33-million research and development facility on St John's Island are perfecting the techniques of large-scale fish breeding and rearing. They hope their work will result in production of almost half the fish people eat here.

Only 5,000 tonnes of fish and seafood, or 5 per cent of that eaten here a year, is produced locally now.

But the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority's (AVA) Marine Aquaculture Centre, which was opened officially yesterday, aims to increase the annual figure to 40,000 tonnes in eight years. The centre will be working with commercial partners to hit the target, said AVA's chief executive officer Ngiam Tong Tau.

Each person here eats about 25kg of fish a year, and most of this comes from stocks caught in the region's seas and rivers. But such stocks are being depleted through overfishing and pollution, said Minister of State (National Development) Vivian Balakrishnan, who opened the centre yesterday.

'In the long run, we will need to turn to aquaculture for more sustainable supplies,' he said.

Citing the example of Norway, which has harnessed technology to farm about a quarter of the world's salmon demand, he said: 'Their technological advances have reaped great savings in production costs, and have given their farmers a keen competitive edge... Salmon, once the food for the rich, has become plentiful and affordable for all of us.'

Getting there is easier said than done. One obstacle is getting good quality fish fry. At least 100 million fry would be needed to produce 40,000 tonnes of fish.

Though the centre could help commercial hatcheries to produce enough fry, it is not easy. For instance, the food for the fry has to be cultivated by the centre.

Large bags of micro-algae are grown to feed micro-organisms such as brine shrimp which are used to feed the fry before they are weaned onto dry food.

The fish being produced by the centre include Asian seabass, golden trevally, snapper and pompano.

The AVA's involvement in aquaculture dates back to the 1970s, when, as the Primary Production Department, it worked with kelong operators to farm high-value species which they caught. It also pioneered the development of shallow coastal floating net cages - where the fish live in nets placed in the sea.

There are 86 such farms, which make up 4 per cent of the 100,000 tonnes of fish eaten here every year; the other 1 per cent comes from land-based farms.

With deep net-cage farms, which the centre is now testing off St John's Island, more than three times the amount of fish can be produced over the same surface area as shallow cages.