By Dallas Weaver, Ph.D.* There is an inherent food conversion efficiency advantage of aquaculture over terrestrial meat production, based upon the fact that aquatic animals don’t have to expend energy to stand up or keep warm. This fact, combined with the coming 3 billion more people, as well as the already present 2 billion people on this planet who desire...
By: George B. Brooks, Jr. Ph.D. Can aquaponics help restore the US aquaculture industry? Well yes, and it already is. Allow me to elaborate. For years now we have watched the slow decline of the aquaculture industry in the United States. A great discourse on this challenge was recently penned by John Hargreaves, an Editor for the World Aquaculture Society....
By Asbjørn Bergheim* Dealing with solid waste in aquaculture due to undigested feed and uneaten feed is a well known operational issue for fish farmers. Accumulation of solids in the fish units reduces the water quality for the fish stock and sedimentation in the recipient environment, e.g. on the sea/lake bed beneath cages and at the pipe outlet from closed...
By Jonathan van Senten, Ph.D. as guest columnist1 and Carole R. Engle, Ph.D.2 “Measurement is the first step that leads to control and eventually improvement. If you can’t measure something, you can’t understand it. If you can’t understand it, you can’t control it. If you can’t control it, you can’t improve it.” – H. James Harrington What follows then, is...
By: Paul B. Brown* Whenever you have dynamic interactions between 300 million people and the American economy acting in really complex ways, that introduces a degree of almost chaos theory to the system, in a literal sense.” Nate Silver (1978-), American writer. Nate Silver’s description of the American population and their interaction with the economy come close to describing the...
By Suzi Dominy* Insects: the buzz word in aquafeed Fish producers increasingly look to feed containing plant-based proteins to provide the essential component of nutrition that builds and repairs the cells that sustain life. Agriculture produces roughly 525 million tonnes of plant protein a year from corn, rice, wheat and soybeans. However, today’s protein production is not sustainable: only 25...
