As the demand for seafood has increased, new technologies have made it possible to grow fish and molluscs in inland and marine waters to avoid putting additional pressure on natural ecosystems: this is how the aquaculture sector is born. Aquaculture is the aquatic equivalent of agriculture. At the contrary of wild-caught fish, caught in their natural environment, fish produced by the aquaculture sector are raised and caught in controlled environments, in inland or coastal waters, or in the ocean. In that sense, aquaculture can be used as a method to produce more fish without endangering existing stocks, but also to restore habitat, replenish wild stocks, and rebuild populations of threatened and endangered species. By 2050, 30% more population which implies an unprecedented challenge: food systems need to substantially increase the production of safe and nutritious food, while reducing the pressure on environmental resources.
The European aquaculture sector has become increasingly important in this context. However, the sector still needs to complete the following objectives to answer tomorrow’s challenges:
o Use sustainable fish feeds
o Increase organic aquaculture production
o Improve available technologies and production systems to increase efficiency
o Increase robustness (disease resistance) and quality of fish and molluscs
o Use fewer chemicals and antibiotics
o Support the diversification of fish species and products
Objectives
The main goal of the NewTechAqua project is to expand and diversify European aquaculture production of finfish, molluscs and microalgae by developing and validating technologically-advances, resilient and sustainable applications.
In that sense, researchers and partners from the NewTechAqua will test and develop new solutions to:
• Deliver solutions to improve fish and mollusc health and disease resistance: prediction models for specific diseases, kits for disease’ detection, new breeding programmes, and new diets.
• Increase the efficiency of aquaculture production systems via real-time management systems, satellite systems, and recommendations.
• Make the aquaculture sector more sustainable and circular through new diets and feed products using fish by-products, fish processing wastewaters, and microalgae, new organic diets using plant proteins to produce more organic fish.
• Support diversification of fish species by studying the reproductive cycle of emerging fish species to re-create the best conditions for raising these new species in aquaculture production systems.
• Develop new eco-friendly fish and molluscs products with high nutritional value
• Raise awareness and train professionals from the aquaculture sector by creating training programmes and conducting studies on consumers’ preferences.
With this new set of solutions, NewTechAqua will demonstrate that investment in sustainable aquaculture research and innovation leads to the creation of new value chains, markets, growth and jobs in coastal, offshore and landlocked areas.
