The industry will receive $3.8 million for research, development and extension activities, $1.5 million for industry development, a $1.1 million program to improve regulation and technical guidance, and $1 million to establish an aquaculture incubator.

The multi-million dollar package comes off the back of a Fisheries Queensland report showing aquaculture jobs in the Townsville region have doubled to 218 full-time equivalents since 2020-21.

Agricultural Industry Development and Fisheries Minister Mark Furner said the government had “overseen a Queensland aquaculture revolution” where the industry’s value had increased by more than $100 million in the three years from 2018-19.

He said the industry had grown to a record value of $224.7 million in 2021-22, up from the previous record of $193.5 million in 2020-21 and employed the full-time equivalent of 889 Queenslanders 2021-22, up from 786 the previous financial year.

Member for Mundingburra Les Walker said the Ornatas facility was supporting “30 good, local jobs” in Townsville.

However analysts at the Australian Bureau of Agricultural Resources and Economics and Sciences (ABARES) who met in Canberra this week for their annual summit, are taking a different view of the industry’s prospects over the better part of this decade.

While the gross value of Australian fisheries and aquaculture production (GVP) is forecast to rise nationally in 2022−23, by eight per cent to $3.63 billion, it will be a one per cent drop on last year’s growth.

The “slight slowing of growth”, according to the ABARES economists, reflects smaller price rises and lower production volume increases for salmonids, prawns and abalone during the year.

Tuna and rock lobster prices are also forecast to decline.

“Over the medium term, 2023–24 to 2027–28, the real value of fisheries and aquaculture GVP is projected to decline by 0.7 per cent a year, driven by a slowing of growth in export and domestic demand for seafood.” the ABARES report said.

Ornatas Aquaculture CEO Scott Parkinson and Agriculture and Fisheries Minister Mark Furner with the growing hatchlings.

Furner said the $7.5 million investment would mean more industry development and more guidance for Queensland aquaculture businesses that were attracting new investment.

“We’ve declared more than 9000 hectares of aquaculture development areas across eight land parcels in the last four years,” he said.

“We want Queensland to be the aquaculture capital of the world, and our investment will help us to further partner with industry and grow the already world-class reputation of Queensland seafood.”

The announcement was made at Ornatas Toomulla Beach Aquaculture facility in Townsville, where CEO Scott Parkinson said his tropical rock lobster business had invested more than $30 million in regional Queensland and was expanding its commercial lobster hatchery, including a newly commissioned lobster nursery, to produce 100,000 lobsters for their export and domestic markets.

“The next 18 months will see the expansion of our pilot grow out facilities to a commercial farming scale, ready to sell into Asian markets with ever growing demand for premium seafood from sustainable sources,” he said.

Parkinson told InQueensland the primary market for his company’s live lobsters was China, which suspended imports of the Australian product in 2020. Signals from China and Australian trade officials suggest a re-start of the estimated $700 million trade may happen this year.

Parkinson said they were working with an Australian exporter to investigate other Asian markets to diversify their options.

“We have a distributor on board who has great expertise in managing our distribution internationally,” he said.

“Our focus is to grow a quality, premium product that we know will be in high demand, and which fetches hundreds of dollars per kilo once it lands in those key Asian markets.”

(This story is an edited version which clarifies the $7.5 million in State Government funding will be directed to the aquaculture industry and not the Ornatas Toomulla Beach Aquaculture facility).