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Digital transformation
in aquaculture The phenomenon of digital transformation in aquaculture appears to be a process much more related to cultural barriers, paradigms, and rejection and fear of change rather than to the actual usage of information technologies
By: Salvador Meza *
L
ast year (2018), while I visited AquaExpo Guayaquil in Ecuador, I observed a tendency among the biggest companies that took part in the commercial exhibit. Most of them were feed manufacturers and providers, and they had as a common objective for this exhibition to promote their digital apps for data optimization in fish farming. This marketing focus
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was more prominent than the one oriented towards their own products and services. Some of the companies even had their full team of software developers and designers in their booths, all brought in from their different corporate headquarters in faraway countries, in order to provide specialized digital consultancy to aquaculturists and “digitalize” them and their businesses.
Potential customers for these digital developments observed with disbelief the promised features of those apps and technological advancements, paying attention to the onsite demonstrations with a certain degree of disdain, even. The system functionalities to introduce data from the fish farming operations and the developed algorithms that allowed analyzing data in an “easier”
DECEMBER 2019 - JANUARY 2020
