Aquaculture is a relatively new industry. Compared to competitors in the animal protein production industry we are relatively small. The players in the animal protein sector are extremely strong, efficient and industrialised by comparison.

Aquaculture production is performed under conditions which promote uncertainty and variability:

• unexpected variations in production volume
• unexpected variations in cost
• unexplained variations in growth and quality
• new diseases and drug resistant pathogen populations
• sudden environmental effects and interactions that are not understood

As a result aquaculture has been seen as highly unpredictable compared to other forms of animal protein production. One outcome from this is that aquaculture has developed in cycles.

If aquaculture can take action to manage down the sources of variation that afflict the industry then it will have stronger foundations on which to base sustained and significant growth. A more predictable process will be translated into more predicable customers for our product and for investment in our companies.

What forms of innovation might underpin a significant improvement in the ability to reduce variability? Should we adopt some of the approaches used by other sectors in the animal protein production industries?

Where do the answers lie?

The main concerns articulated by the environmental community are as follows:

• sustainability of resources used in aquaculture
• impact of aquaculture on marine biodiversity
• sustainability of fish feed practices (fish meal and oil)
• alien species introduction via aquaculture
• escapees and effects on wild populations
• release of organic matter (feed and waste products)
• over fishing of wild species for aquaculture (tuna)
• marine spatial planning and competition with alternative coastal activities
• eco-labelling of aquaculture products
• animal welfare (therapeutics, nutrition, intensive farming practices, transport)

According to environmental agencies, innovation emphasis should be given to:

• domestication
• behaviour and survival of escapees
• impacts of introduced species
• life cycle of aquaculture species
• biology and trends of species used for fish meal
• alternative sources of food ingredients
• recirculating aquaculture systems
• waste disposal or recycling
• disease and disease monitoring in wild populations

Do we have the complete list of environmental concerns listed here? Are there others that you can identify?

The presentation on aquaculture’s enviromental challenges by Despina Symons of the European Bureau for Conservation and Development is available here.

Nigel Edwards, Technical Director of Seachill, presented a clear set of insights on the priorities held by large retailers and processors in seeking to meet the needs of their customers. As a result of rapidly evolving customer priorities, these are the innovation challenges from the retailer/processor point of view:

• The industry must maintain the considerable nutritional benefits from eating farmed fish and provide for increased demand despite the stable or declining feed fish stocks
• All feed raw materials must be demonstrably sustainable, we need a responsible sourcing standard for feed producers
• There is a need to reduce the contaminants in fishmeal and oil
• The top line feed conversion ratio could be improved
• It is unacceptable to enhance the human nutritional benefits by genetic modification of fish

Improving the ratio of conversion of feed fish to farmed fish should be a research priority but not at the expense of

• fish health
• human nutrition, (especially EPA and DHA content)
• intrinsic quality of the final product
• cost of production

Reduce cost of production by

• automation
• improved feed conversion
• reduced mortality
• lower energy use
• lower feed wastage

Improve fish welfare by:

• introducing new vaccines
• improved fish handling techniques
• instantaneous stunning prior to slaughter

Other innovation priorities:

• introduce new species to aquaculture especially those that have a low cost of production
• Support development of organic standards for all species and assist farmers to be efficient within organic farming regime

As well as working for Seachill (part of the Icelandic Group), Nigel is a member of the GLOBALGAP Aquaculture Sector Committee. GLOBALGAP is a private sector body that sets voluntary standards for the certification of agricultural products around the globe.

Nigel’s March 2007 presentation can be viewed here.

John Stephanis, Managing Director SELONDA Aquaculture S.A. and FEAP President presented his insights on the growout challenges before aquaculture. In March 2007 he identified the following issues as he commented on open ocean cage systems:

• present in Mediterranean, Ireland,US, Norway, Brazil, South Korea
• operation of 1000 ton cage systems in exposed sites requires robust equipment
• less competition with other coastal zone users
• higher investment cost
• construction of submersible cages (questions as to economic performance?)
• automation of feeding
• self sufficient remote monitoring and maintenance
• automatic net cleaning
• harvesting and transport
• insurance and risk management
• health management
• specialised personnel

The full presentation used by Mr Stephanis is available by clicking this link.

The aquaculture industry recognises that there is a clear relationship between improvements in fish welfare, consumer confidence and the production of premium quality fish.

An exceptional resource in terms of papers and presentations on fish welfare and the quality/productivity equation from May 2007 is available here.

In particular, Alan Dykes outlines in his paper the challenges created by fish welfare for aquaculture. These include:

• the need to establish agreed standards for operational welfare indicators
• standards are required for measurement of overall welfare
• standards are required for measuring the costs and benefits of welfare
• different societies have differing values with respect to welfare

Machine vision and image analysis can enable the sorting of fish into “production”, “ordinary” and “superior” classes.

Today, fish are graded manually by employees who assess their shape, colour and any surface injuries to the fish. Consumers demand salmon fillets that are fresh and regular in colour and shape. This can be difficult to achieve using a manual approach.

Automation can increase productivity and raise processing rates while improving the consistency of classification. Norwegian science organisation SINTEF has supported an array of research projects related to automated processing of aquaculture product. Information about its automated fish processing capabilities can be found here.

The Australian Broadcasting Commission ran over six minutes of video on the breakthrough achieved by CleanSeas Tuna in Port Lincoln South Australia. Cleanseas Chairman Hagen Stehr recounts the critical steps in the process of collecting the first fertilised egg produced by a Southern Bluefin Tuna in captivity.

The video segment may be viewed by clicking on this link. Breakthrough boosts fishing industry.

The transcript of the story is available here.

Vodcasts of the video ‘Breakthrough boosts fishing industry’ may be downloaded here.

Clean Seas Tuna Limited announced a world first breakthrough by becoming the first organisation in the world to create an artificial breeding regime for Southern Bluefin Tuna on March 4, 2008.

During the First Stakeholders Meeting held in Brussels on 22 March 2007 fish breeding challenges for the future were defined by Hervé Chavanne from Istituto Lazzaro Spallanzani. Hervé defined the current focus of breeding activities as growth, fillet quality, external appearance, sexual maturity, processing traits and disease resistance.

Hervé defined the emerging challenges as:

• Include new traits in the selection indexes
• Develop robust animals suited to farming conditions
• Reduce the environmental impact of farming
• Raise the public awareness of breeding practices
• Integrate genomic tools in new selection strategies
• Appraise genetic gain through benchmarking

The Aquabreeding project involves 6 industrial representatives and 5 research organisations representing the major European aquaculture species. The Aquabreeding website includes an array of excellent resources including recent information on breeding and genetics for the major fish species farmed in Europe.

The species reviews provide breeding information and give an overview of knowledge gaps for each major species in order to define industrial research priorities. Typically 10 -14 pages, the species reviews provide state of the art of breeding and reproduction for major aquaculture species. Each review contains a list of references. The species covered by the reviews include: Atlantic Salmon, Rainbow Trout, Seabream, Seabass, Common Carp, Charrs, Atlantic Cod, Brown Trout, Turbot, Tilapia, Wrasse and Sturgeon.

People interested in the work conducted through this project can sign up to receive additional information as the project progresses.

Hervé’s presentation from March 2007 may be viewed here.

During consultations related to the European Aquaculture Technology Platform (EATP) Mr Frank van Ooijen of Nutreco Holding NV drew together the major challenges facing aquaculture in the optimisation of feed for fish farming. The challenges he highlighted were:

• ensure access to raw materials in a dynamic world
• source fish meal and oil from sustainable sources
• look for independent certification
• further improve feed conversion ratios
• step up the substitution of fish meal and oil
• ensure health and safety: limit undesirable substances
• increase knowledge of fish nutritional requirements
• increase knowledge of the link between fish nutrition and fish health

The slides used by Mr van Ooijen to support his presentation may be viewed here.

In considering the future of aquaculture the work of Pål Lader from SINTEF Fisheries and Aquaculture (Norway) is a must read.

In an article entitled 2020: An Aquaculture Odyssey in Gemini Magazine Pål sketches out what the future of the aquaculture industry could look like.

Free-range farmed fish. Sea cages that sail off and deliver their fish by themselves. Large autonomous fish farms that float unmoored in the sea. This could be the aquaculture of the future, the article states in a well argued scenario of what the future could look like.

When not casting his mind forward to design the aquaculture systems of the future Pål is a researcher for Norwegian Science Agency SINTEF with expertise in understanding the load bearing capacity of various types of aquaculture structures.