Cleaner-fish technology now ready for commercialization
The stage is set in Atlantic Canada to take innovations in cleanerfish technology into money-making opportunities
BY LIZA MAYER
Atlantic Canada needs commercial facilities to scale up cleaner-fish technology and produce the roughly five million lumpfish juveniles that the region’s growing salmon industry will require, says Danny Boyce, an academic leading the cleaner-fish initiative in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada.
Boyce heads the Dr Joe Brown Aquatic Research Building, which is part of the Department of Ocean Sciences at Memorial University in NL, where a cleaner-fish program is based. The program investigates the applications of lumpfish and cunners–both native to Atlantic Canada waters–in salmon aquaculture in the region.
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The future or a niche?
Producers and experts weigh in on aquaponics’ impact and why some fail
BY MATT JONES
Is aquaponics going to be the new frontier for food production, or is it just a fad that will settle into a niche?
“I feel this is a budding industry,” says Mark Warrell, production manager at Nevada’s Dayton Valley Aquaponics. “Market feasibility studies show very strong growth in the aquaponics sector. The commercial sector in aquaponics is a feasible business model and shows promise to feed the future.”
North American farmers face economic pressure from costs of regulations, fish health and imports
Regulations and fish health are troubling US and Canadian trout farmers, as Iran and Turkey have grabbed the top spots in world production. To grow, many in North America contend they must change stubborn mindsets—both among consumers and farmers themselves.
Yet others are focused on a brighter future delivered by science. Trout sales in the US totaled $100 million in 2018, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS). That represented a decrease of 10 percent from 2017 and an increase of only 4 percent from five years prior. For almost 20 years, Idaho has accounted for two-thirds of US production, on average.
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