Saving Seafood

ProntoForms on iPhone and iPad helps Cooke Aquaculture save over $2.1M annually

August 10, 2018 — The following was released by ProntoForms:

ProntoForms Corporation (TSXV:PFM), the global leader in smart mobile forms for enterprise, today announced how Cooke Aquaculture, the largest producer of Atlantic Salmon in North America, deployed ProntoForms to transform its operational processes with a customized iOS solution, resulting in over $2.1M in annual cost savings. The solution also helps Cooke field staff become more efficient, saving about 4,200 hours per month.

Cooke Aquaculture is using ProntoForms on iPhone and iPad in the field to streamline multiple operations and maintenance processes – daily inspections of boats, barges, fish pens, and other sea farming equipment. Data submitted from the boats is transmitted to the office in real time and securely integrated into MS SharePoint to ensure rapid and easy access of up-to-date information, including custom document formats, for management, auditors, and regulatory bodies. Field data is also integrated into the company’s Aquaculture Operations system of record to track site performance, feed consumption, and inventory across multiple sites and regions.

“We’re almost 100% paperless now in our department because of ProntoForms and their iOS solution for iPhone and iPad,” says Mark Fraser, Remote Feed Supervisor at Cooke Aquaculture. “One hour of savings per day for 200 users equals 4,200 hours per month, or about $180K/month in savings. Time to train staff to use ProntoForms on iPhone and iPad has been less than an hour given how intuitive the software and hardware are to use.“

“Our no-code platform enables operations groups and enterprise IT teams to quickly deploy a mobile solution, expand to new processes, develop new workflows, and completely transform their operations,” says Alvaro Pombo, CEO of ProntoForms. “Enabling field technicians to reliably integrate field data into systems of record using a powerful mobile front end is a crucial capability for large corporations. As this deployment shows, our mobile solution for iOS is robust, easy to use and manage, and delivers a significant return on investment for our enterprise customers.”

For more details, watch the Cooke Aquaculture customer success video here.

Vietnam poised to become top player in ocean aquaculture

August 9, 2018 — Vietnam has set an ambitious goal of becoming a leading country in aquaculture – specifically in the productive development of its coastal marine environment.

Currently ranked as the fourth-largest producer of seafood from aquaculture, behind China, Indonesia, and India, Vietnam produced 3.84 million metric tons (MT) of farmed seafood in 2017. That was more than 53 percent of Vietnam’s total seafood production of 7.23 MT, which itself represented an increase of 5.2 percent year-on-year over Vietnam’s total from 2016.

Vietnam’s government and industry stakeholders have recently taken a more serious interest in the development of Vietnam’s aquaculture sector, Tran Dinh Luan, the deputy director of Vietnam’s Fisheries General Department, told a workshop in Hanoi in early July.

The workshop, co-organized by the Vietnam Seaculture Association, Vietnam’s Fisheries Department, and the U.S. Soybean Export Council (USSEC), centered around Vietnam’s draft national strategy for marine aquaculture development through 2030. The strategy, with an addendum that proposes a vision through 2050, was prepared by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and will be submitted to Vietnam Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc for final approval.

The plan calls for the country to implement – on a trial basis – several policies designed to encourage industrial sea farming, particularly in offshore areas, by 2020. The plan aims to double the farmed output from the sea by 2020 to 750,000 MT total, comprising 200,000 MT of fish, 400,000 MT of mollusks and 150,000 MT of seaweed, according to the draft strategy.

Luan said while sea farming in Vietnam is still at its early stages of development, the strategy is designed to develop the whole production chain of the sector at larger and more advanced levels. In its latter stages of execution, the plan calls for production to rise to 1.75 million MT by 2030, and to three million MT by 2050.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

KIMBERLY HAMILTON: Maine has an opportunity to be a global player in aquaculture

August 2, 2018 –Maine is resilient. As former economic sectors decline, we find new ways to market our natural resources, provide jobs for Maine families, and support local and regional economies.

Today, Maine is on the cusp of another economic resurgence — this time in aquaculture. Not one, but two significant projects are under development in midcoast Maine, both slated to raise Atlantic salmon in state-of-the art facilities. One of them, Whole Oceans in Bucksport, will redeploy paper mill infrastructure at the former Champion International mill site. The other, Nordic Aquafarms, will add to the growing industry in Belfast, once a chicken production capital of the world.

Aquaculture is the fastest growing food producing sector, growing at 5 percent annually between 2003 and 2016, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization’s 2018 State of the World’s Fisheries and Aquaculture report. By 2030, aquaculture will account for 60 percent of global fish food consumption, helping to preserve our fragile wild fish population. By these measures, it’s not surprising that aquaculture holds the power to transform economies.

If Maine plays its cards right, we can capture a significant portion of this transformative energy, competing with Scotland, Norway and Canada to meet the expanding global demand for nutritious fish protein. Importantly, Maine stands to gain more than 2,000 new jobs over the next 10 years as a result of growth in the aquaculture sector, according to FocusMaine’s own extensive research. The growth of related jobs would push this number even higher.

Read the full opinion piece at the Bangor Daily News

Technavio report: Global aquaculture market’s growth accelerating through 2022

July 23, 2018 — The global aquaculture market is experiencing robust growth, which is likely to accelerate through the year 2022, according to a report from the market research firm Technavio.

The report, “Global Aquaculture Market 2018-2022,” presents an analysis of the global aquaculture market based on end-users (commercial and residential); by product (freshwater fish, crustacean, mollusks, diadromous fish, and others); by environment (freshwater, marine water, and brackish water); by culture (net pen culture, floating-cage culture, pond culture, and rice field culture); by geography (the Americas, APAC, and EMEA); and by market, organized by distribution channel.

The report attributes aquaculture’s rising success to the world’s growing human population, its hunger for seafood, and the decline of the captured fish industry.

“Globalization, which has led to improved logistics systems and trade facilities, provides a favorable environment for the growth of the aquaculture market,” the report said. “The growth of the retail sector also drives the market.”

The report predicts a compound annual growth rate for the global aquaculture industry of 4.46 percent for the five-year period between 2018 and 2022. In 2018, the report predicts a CAGR of 3.72; a CAGR of 4.12 percent in 2019; 4.50 percent in 2020; 4.83 percent in 2021; and 5.15 percent in 2022.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Financing aquaculture: The cash is there, but information is lacking

July 18, 2018 — Finance can “drive change on the water,” according to Neil Sims at Kampachi Worldwide Holdings. But for aquaculture projects, it’s still hard to come by.

Speaking at the SeaWeb Seafood Summit in Barcelona, Spain in June, Sims told the story of his company. He said it took 10 years to raise enough funds to initiate his marine aquaculture project in Hawaii. There was a temptation to put one pen out while he raised the rest of the cash.

“But that would be throwing money down the rat hole,” he said. “In mariculture you need scale, you need to have the cash together.”

There’s plenty of money waiting to invest in aquaculture, according to Trip O’Shea, vice president at New York, U.S.A.-based investment house Encourage Capital. But first the sector needs to offer would-be investors data and models to profitability.

“There are several pillars of sustainable development but where is financial sustainability on the list? Otherwise how do we get it off the ground?” he said. “We need a set of principles for aquaculture investment, so that investors can quickly understand what to benchmark to. Right now there are so many metrics quoted. We have to compare apples to apples.”

O’Shea cited feed conversion ratios as an example.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

ALASKA: Hatchery debate wages on as research continues

July 13, 2018 — A conflict is intensifying over hatcheries in Prince William Sound.

For the second time this year, Alaska’s Board of Fisheries will weigh an emergency petition to block a Solomon Gulch Hatchery from increasing its production.

This is the latest skirmish in a battle over whether pink salmon hatcheries are causing more harm than good.

“This is the incubation room in here, and what we’re having here is stacks of incubators,” Cook Inlet Aquaculture Association executive director Gary Fandrei said, pointing toward stacks of incubators that look like the drawers to a really large tool chest. “We actually have a total of 359 incubators that we have available to us in here.”

Fandrei gives a tour of the Tutka Bay Lagoon Hatchery near Homer.

The facility will harvest up to 125 million pink salmon eggs this summer. Depending on survival, most of those eggs will hatch in the fall.

Like other pink salmon hatcheries, the one at Tutka Bay has attracted scrutiny in the past couple of years over growing environmental concerns.

Read the full story at KTOO

US Senator Roger Wicker files bill to further aquaculture industry

July 9, 2018 — U.S. Senator Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi) has filed a bill that he said would further develop the aquaculture industry in the country.

S. 3138, named the “Advancing the Quality and Understanding of American Aquaculture Act,” calls for the creation of the Office of Marine Aquaculture within NOAA Fisheries. That office would oversee regulatory issues within NOAA and push for development opportunities to spur aquaculture’s growth, especially within the country’s exclusive economic zones.

“Aquaculture is the fastest-growing sector of the agriculture industry,” Wicker said in a press release. “This bill would give farmers a clear, simplified regulatory path to start new businesses in our coastal communities. The AQUAA Act would also fund needed research to continue the growth and success of this important industry.”

The bill itself twice mentions it aims to address the U.S. seafood trade deficit. It notes that the country imports about 90 percent of the seafood Americans consume, with half of those imports coming from aquaculture.

U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-Florida) is listed as a co-sponsor, and a trade group has started a letter-writing campaign to land additional co-sponsors.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

North Carolina legislature adjourns without passing aquaculture bill

July 5, 2018 — The North Carolina legislature has ended its session without considering a bill that would have made it easier for Cooke Seafood USA and others to ramp up oyster farming in the state. Costal Review Online reported.

The North Carolina General Assembly had been preparing to vote on the Support Shellfish Industry Act, HB 361, which would have raised the cap for oyster permits in the Pamlico Sound, the US’ second largest estuary, covering over 3,000 square miles of open water behind North Carolina’s touristy Outer Banks. Permits would have risen from a combined 50 acres to 200 acres, allowing for larger scale operations. It’s a change being sought by the Wanchese Fish Company, a Suffolk, Virginia-based harvester and processor acquired by the Canadian Cooke family in 2015, among others.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

A new chapter for US aquaculture?

June 28, 2018 — A bill that could allow for the culture of fish and shellfish in US Federal waters for the first time has been welcomed by representatives of the US aquaculture industry.

The bill to introduce the Advancing the Quality and Understanding of American Aquaculture (AQUAA) Act was implemented by Senator Roger Wicker and aims to streamline the permitting process for aquaculture farms in federal waters, and fund research and development to advance the aquaculture industry.

Its introduction was welcomed by the US National Aquaculture Association (NAA), whose president, Jim Parsons, told The Fish Site: “The last time the US Senate considered this topic was in 2005. Over the last several decades, shellfish, fish and seaweed farming in state waters has contributed considerable jobs and income benefits to coastal communities and resulted in the production of high-quality seafood. Because of this experience and success, the stage is set to recognize times have changed. We can farm offshore using new technology, new production gear, and greatly improved feeds to make the US a net seafood exporter instead of the second largest consumer of global seafood. In addition, a proven regulatory model of federal and state regulations has demonstrated that we can grow fish, shellfish and seaweed sustainably and be fully protective of the environment. We are looking forward to working with Congress to pass legislation beneficial to the US aquaculture community.”

Read the full story at The Fish Site

Ocean science agency chief floats removing ‘climate’ from mission statement and focusing on trade deficit

June 26, 2018 — A recent presentation by the acting head of the United States’ top weather and oceans agency suggested removing the study of “climate” from its official mission statement, focusing the agency’s work instead on economic goals and “homeland and national security.”

Critics say this would upend the mission of the $5.9 billion National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. But the administration disputes that interpretation, saying the presentation did not intend to create a change of direction at a vast agency that tracks hurricanes and atmospheric carbon dioxide, operates weather satellites, manages marine reserves and protects endangered ocean species, among other functions.

NOAA’s mission, the agency says, is “to understand and predict changes in climate, weather, oceans, and coasts, to share that knowledge and information with others, and to conserve and manage coastal and marine ecosystems and resources.”

But in a presentation at a Commerce Department “Vision Setting Summit” this month, Rear Adm. Timothy Gallaudet, the agency’s acting administrator, suggested a change to that mission statement, as well as a new emphasis on tripling the size of the U.S. aquaculture industry within a decade and moving to “reduce the seafood trade deficit.”

The new NOAA mission, the presentation said, would be “to observe, understand and predict atmospheric and ocean conditions, to share that knowledge and information with others, and to protect lives and property, empower the economy, and support homeland and national security.”

“This presentation is a simplified draft for discussion,” said Gallaudet, an oceanographer who has spoken in the past about climate change’s effects on the Arctic, in a statement provided by the agency. “It was not intended to create change in NOAA mission or policy from what it was before. Any interpretation to the contrary is simply inaccurate.”

But the proposed removal of language about studying the “climate” and about the managing of coastal and marine resources has aroused considerable ire and concern.

Read the full story at the Washington Post