Volume 21 Issue 5 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2020
HUMAN RESOURCE
INNOVATION
Hiring prospects BY LIZA MAYER
ontrolled environment agriculture” sounds like a mouthful and perhaps an unfamiliar term to some, but on it could rest the future of aquaculture. The phrase is an umbrella term under which technology-based approach in food production falls, for instance, recirculating aquaculture, aquaponics, hydroponics and aeroponics. Academic and research institutions are leading cutting-edge research in these fields but they also play another crucial role: providing the industry with a qualified, adequately trained workforce. Recent heightened interest and investment into technical food production systems have put the industry’s manpower shortage under the microscope.
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Will technology and innovation be the key to attracting young people to work in aquaculture? Photo: Virginia Tech
“I can think of two (investors) right off the bat that I’ve spoken with in the last three months and both need to hire, in a three-year horizon, between 80 and 120 people per location,” says Dr. Michael Schwarz, director of the Virginia Seafood Agriculture Research and Extension Center. He says the massive U.S. seafood deficit has attracted significant domestic as well as international capital over the past two years and this is powering the expansion of U.S. aquaculture. The Trump administration’s executive order in May 2020 sought to promote the competitiveness of American seafood. It would remove barriers to aquaculture in order to help the industry expand.
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SUSTAINABILIT Y
Mexico-based startup turns wastewater into fish feed BY JEAN KO DIN
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astewater from intensive fish farming can pose a significant threat to nearby marine ecosystems. With global pressure to increase production
that ensures food security, one innovative company believes the aquaculture industry must take a long, hard look at reducing its environmental footprint. MicroTERRA is a Mexican start-up that is turning heads in the industry for developing a scaleable water treatment system that could become a win-win solution for the local fish producer. The company was founded in 2018 with the idea of unlocking the untapped resource contained in fish wastewater. MicroTERRA has developed a circular treatment system that pumps polluted water from fish tanks into a series of cylindrical bioreactors where microalgae is used to absorb nutrients, nitrogen and phosphorous present in fish waste. Through the process of photosynthesis, microalgae is separated from the clean, oxygenated water. The microalgae can then be harvested and dried to produce up to 60 percent of the farmer's own fish feed. continued on page 18
R&D brings burbot back to Belgium Belgian entrepreneur plans hatchery expansion after early rearing success BY LYNN FANTOM
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oachim Claeyé started his business in a garage. Like many entrepreneurs, he shares his story with a special group of collaborators and mentors. But Claeyé’s tech skills are in recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS). And his innovation is to pioneer next-generation menus with a species that was virtually extinct in Europe: the burbot (Lota lota). At age 20, Claeyé founded Hatchery Aqualota in Zele, East Flanders, Belgium. Now, three years later, he is expanding commercial operations in space leased from University College Odisee, where, as a student, he had participated in industry-leading research at the Aquaculture Education and Research Facility (Aqua-ERF). This growth of Aqualota is coming at a time of increased global interest in cultivating burbot. On the other side of the Atlantic, the lab of Dr. Kenneth Cain, associate director of the Aquaculture Research Institute at the University of Idaho, has been testing how different commercial feeds affect the growth and health of burbot. “It is a really promising candidate for aquaculture,” Cain says.
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