Posted at 1:11 p.m., Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Local aquaculture sales rise 1% to $28 million last year
Advertiser Staff
Sales of locally grown aquaculture products continued their slow, but steady growth last year, led by a healthy increase in algae sales.Overall aquaculture sales rose 1 percent to $28.4 million in 2005 from the previous year, with algae sales posting a 16 percent increase to $14,6 million, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service.
Algae, which constituted 51 percent of all aquaculture sales last year, is used in a variety of pharmaceutical and nutritional products. The bulk of the state's aquaculture production — 71 percent of the total — came from the Big Island.
