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NEWS
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The Aquaculturists
A regular look inside the aquaculture industry The Alltech REBELation concludes with a challenge Challenging the audience to “never say never,” Alltech founder and president Dr. Pearse Lyons concluded the Alltech REBELation, an international conference exploring innovation, inspiration and world-changing ideas. bit.ly/1domAh7
Angling for gender equality in the seafood industry: New FAO report traces fisheries’ glass ceiling While women are estimated to make up nearly half of all people in the fisheries sector, their work often goes unrecognized and underpaid, their access to opportunities and resources remains limited and their representation in positions of leadership trails far behind other industries. bit.ly/1Hm6ID6
ADM to construct feed plant in China Archer Daniels Midland Company has announced that it is building a new feed-premix plant in the city of Zhangzhou, in southern China, bringing to four the number of plants in the company’s premix network in the country. bit.ly/1Aj7V0N
Biting wit: great white's unofficial Twitter feed gains 44,000 followers An organisation studying great white sharks is enjoying some welcome attention after one of the creatures it has been monitoring started gaining a loyal social media following, The Guardian reports. bit.ly/1HyRCzm
www.theaquaculturists .blogspot.com
Aquasense International and Gamma Seafood sign letter of intent to distribute first saltwater-farmed tilapia product
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quasense International C o r p o r a t i o n (‘Aquasense’), the US holding company of the affiliate aquaculture company, Aquasense Panamá, S de RL (‘Aquasense Panama’), signed a letter of intent (LOI) with Miami-based, Gamma Seafood Corporation (‘Gamma Seafood’), a division of the Alfa Gamma Group, to market and distribute the seafood industry’s first ever farm-raised, saltwater red tilapia products in the USA market. Under this LOI, Aquasense Panama will supply the Alfa
MEPs vote for sustainable fishing in the Baltic Sea
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multiannual plan for managing Baltic cod, sprat and herring stocks was approved by Parliament on Tuesday. This is the first such plan under the new Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), which took effect in 2014. Long-run management, rather than yearon-year planning, should make life more predictable for fishermen. Multiannual management, and the fact that these three interacting species will now be managed through a single plan, should also make fishing in the Baltic more sustainable. “The plan is a long-awaited pioneer proposal. It should help to ensure the balanced, sustainable exploitation of the stocks concerned and hence protect the livelihoods of fishermen. The multispecies approach should achieve this far more effectively than single species management. At the same time, the
Gamma Group, on an exclusive basis an estimated annual 500 tons of ocean farmed tilapia to be distributed to high-end US retailers, gourmet chefs and cruise ships, starting as early as next year. By the end of the first project phase, it will supply an annual 6000 tons. All products will consist of sustainably farmraised red tilapia, grown in openocean and eco-friendly production systems, located in pristine waters off the Pacific coast of the Republic of Panama. The product will be offered only fresh, whole and filleted. Aquasense Panama is an early stage aquaculture company with the mission to contribute to meeting the rising food needs of a growing world population in a sustainable manner. In 2007, it set out to change the paradigm of fish farming, by bringing their fish farming operations to the pristine waters surrounding Panama. Considered a non-traditional farming method for
tilapia, their preliminary research showed that when tilapia are reared in the full salinity of the open ocean and fed nutritious feeds, the result is a very much improved fish product, in terms of taste and texture. The Alfa Gamma Group owns and operates SQF and BRC certified facilities and fishing fleets in Panamá, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Suriname and Mexico. Alfa Gamma’s headquar ter s are located in Miami, FL within five miles of the Miami International Airport and 12 miles from the Por t of Miami. Alfa Gamma’s 85,000 square foot headquarters include an SQF Level 3 modern processing facility that receives and processes 20 to 50 thousand pounds of fresh seafood per day, includes a 5 million pound freezer storage facility and is staffed with an experienced and dedicated sales and logistic force servicing customers in North America and abroad.
plan should also ensure that management measures reflect the most up-to-date scientific advice on stock status, interactions between species and ecological needs,” said rappor teur Jarosław Wałęsa (EPP, PL).
to be covered. The present plan replaces the existing one. The stocks concerned are interdependent. For example, cod eat sprats, and to a lesser extent, herring, while herring and sprat sometimes feed on cod eggs. So cod fishing management can have an impact on sprat and herring fishing oppor tunities, and vice versa. Multiannual stock management plans aim to keep stock sizes within safe biological limits. They lay down maximum catches and a range of technical measures, taking due account of the characteristics of each stock and the fisheries in which it is found (species targeted, gear used, status of target stocks) and the economic impact of the measures on the fisheries concerned.
Sustainable fishing: reformed CFP key aims must be met
MEPs ensured that the stocks must be restored and maintained “above” biomass levels that can produce the maximum sustainable yield (MSY), thus reflecting the language of the CFP regulation. MSY means catching no more than a given stock can reproduce in a given year, a key concept made mandatory by the reformed CFP. The plan also has provisions for enforcing other key parts the new CFP, such as the landing obligation (‘discard’ ban) and regional management (see background note on the new CFP).
Background
A Baltic cod stock management plan has been in place since 2008, but herring and sprat had yet
4 | INTERNATIONAL AQUAFEED | May-June 2015
Next steps
The Council has of Ministers approved its ‘General Approach’ on 20 April. Parliament and Council negotiators will now star t talks, helped by the European Commission, with a view to reaching a first reading agreement on the plan.