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Clifford Spencer
Aquaculture Without Frontiers: Creating new platforms for our beneficiaries he proposed AwF visits to Vietnam and Ethiopia I mentioned in my last report have now taken place and the resultant journey threw up a variety of interesting scenarios for aquaculture. As a sign of this charity’s commitment to its objectives a full five members of the six strong board of AwF visited both countries.
In Vietnam there is already a strongly developed system of aquaculture where the business of farming shrimps and fish is part of life and is strongly embedded in the social fabric of the country. This contrasts greatly with aquaculture in Europe where it sits within a setting of knowledge and industry ‘silos’ that often compete for public and thus governmental support and acceptance, and in so doing often prevent much needed development. e.g. water management, environmental regulation, recreational needs in coastal areas, food culture and the advent of fast food and external catering activity to public demand and the supplier requirements for these outlets. I gave a talk in Vietnam at their annual Vietstock event in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) on the growth, decline and shifts in fish markets in the EU, US, Japan and China and my research for that provided some alarming figures for in particular changing eating habits, resultant food demand and as a consequence food supply and human health. The switch to Western diets in Japan for instance has significantly reduced its per capita intake of fish due to the influx and growth of western styled red and white meats being promoted in fast food in the market place. This has also resulted in cardiac health decline, obesity and associated negative health effects. Similarly even in China, an aquaculture global powerhouse, heart health which was of the highest standard due to the consumption of oily fish that was previously predominant in the diet is declining due to increasing demand for the less feed efficient production of red meat and poultry. This emphasises a further need for organisations like AwF to get their story across in developing countries to promote aquaculture for nutrition, livelihoods and health. Pleasingly the trade sponsorship for the Vietnam talk and involvement in the event of International Aqua Feed magazine will provide valuable monies to fund the transport, accommodation and training (together with sponsorship from participating organisations) of a to-be-selected young Vietnamese fish producer to train in Thailand on an intensive week’s aquaculture course. We then travelled to Ethiopia and arrived whilst a declared ‘state of emergency’ was in progress although the capital Addis Ababa revealed little of the situation other than internet restrictions being imposed. We held meetings with the Ethiopian Millers association to discuss the processing of Faba beans (the same type as grown in the UK) for aqua feed use and also visited an industry event to discuss bean
production in the favourable climate of the region. The beans are produced in the uplands where the significant height above sea level provides the cooler conditions whilst still enjoying levels of sunshine that the proximity to the equator provides. Ethiopia is the world’s second largest exporter of Faba beans, running only behind China in the global picture, thus giving an indication of high quality protein aqua feed potential for not only Ethiopia but neighbouring African countries around Lake Victoria. A recent UNIDO project had revealed that Ethiopia itself has rich water resources well suited to aquaculture development and this is coupled with the country currently being one of the lowest per capita consumers of fish on the African continent. It is a land-locked country but has the benefit of the River Nile and numerous lakes and reservoirs where only basic artisanal fishing is currently practised. Technological development and benefits for the farming population are extremely restricted in this one of the poorest countries of the African continent. However with a population of over 100 million of which half are below 18 and many with young families the food security situation is one that has merited concerted effort and sometimes global attention over a long period of time. This food security requirement further emphasises the potential role of high quality fish protein in the diet for particularly the benefit of expectant or young mothers and their children. Couple this to the intrinsic feed efficiency of aquaculture compared to other forms of land based animal protein production of lower quality and the potential for aquaculture becomes obvious. Aquaculture has the potential of producing large quantities of lower-cost, protein rich food and at the same time contributing to the livelihoods of the rural poor whilst it generates food of high nutritional value. Aquaculture therefore is the most important potential source of growth in fish supply for human consumption. However in Ethiopia fish protein accounts for 0.1 percent of protein in the diet, and nearly all is sourced from fisheries as opposed to aquaculture, which is a nascent industry in Ethiopia. During both our visits we enjoyed meetings with everyone from commercial industry players to government Ministers. The time spent provided an excellent global industry insight to supplement the European information already gleaned. We now have a good platform to develop ideas for promoting AwF global activity, so it can to be more effective for its beneficiaries. Some of these ideas when further developed will be described in future reports.
Currently Mr Spencer leads the Global Biotechnology Transfer Foundation (GBTF), which is dedicated to promoting the potential for biotechnology to support sustainable, long-term, socio-economic development.
12 | November | December 2016 - International Aquafeed