8 minute read
Technology
From AI in fish farms to underwater drones, 2021 saw invention aplenty
AT the start of the year,
SalmoSim, a salmon simulator startup, secured its fi rst commercial contract with California-based Calysta.
The simulation is supporting trials for a sustainable alternative protein source that could be rolled out across the global aquaculture industry.
Using a gut simulator that mimics the digestive tract of Atlantic salmon, SalmoSim is conducting a trial of Calysta’s single-cell feed ingredient FeedKind protein, which is made by fermenting natural gas.
Results from the simulation, taking place at the University of Glasgow, will provide Calysta with valuable data on digestibility. Conventional in vivo trials can cost up to £150,000 each time.
The SalmoSim gut simulator was fi rst developed as part of a collaborative research project that began in 2016, funded in part by the Scottish Aquaculture Innovation Centre (SAIC). The consortium, led by the University of Glasgow, included Nofi ma, Alltech and Mowi, with the Marine Institute and University College Cork both involved in a linked project.
Also in January, Benchmark Genetics appointed Bara Gunnlaugsdottir as Head of Digital Technologies, with a brief to develop the company’s strategy and innovation.
Her role involves driving the digital strategy and innovation programmes of the business area, including the responsibility for all strategic management systems within production, quality and environment.
Gunnlaugsdottir joined the company’s Icelandic operation, StofnFiskur, in 2004 as Production Manager. Before being appointed to the new position, she has been heading the division’s Strategic Business Systems, a job she has held since 2018.
On 10 January, aquaculture technology business AKVA was hit by a major cyberattack. It took several weeks to get the business running normally and the company estimated later that the attack had cost it more than £4m. It is believed the attackers were looking to extract a ransom from the company.
This page from top: The SalmoSim team; Bara Gunnlaugsdottir Opposite from top: Lou Cooperhouse, BlueNalu; Observe Technologies screenshot
Meanwhile, the team at Scottish Sea Farms were celebrating winning an environmental award for their work in recycling hatchery waste into nutrient-rich agricultural fertiliser.
The company was presented with a VIBES Scottish Environment Business Award. Scottish Sea Farms was praised by the award organisers for its work to capture fi sh waste from its new salmon hatchery at Barcaldine, near Oban, and recycle it as fertiliser.
In February, we reported that a new type of cultured seafood may fi nd its way from the laboratory to dinner plates in the next year or two thanks to a US $60m fi nancing deal involving pioneering US company BlueNalu.
Based in San Diego, California, BlueNalu is a leader in the development of cellular aquaculture in which living cells are isolated from fi sh tissue, placed into culture media for proliferation, and then assembled into popular fresh and frozen seafood products.
The arrangement involves both new and existing investors, including leading names in the seafood sector such as Thai Union. The fi nancing will enable BlueNalu to achieve several significant milestones over the coming year, including opening a nearly 40,000-square-foot pilot production facility, completing the US FDA regulatory review for its fi rst products and initiating marketplace testing.
BlueNalu plans to introduce a wide variety of cell-based seafood products from its pilot production facility in San Diego. The company anticipated starting with the launch of mahi mahi (a ray-fi nned fi sh found in warmer waters), followed by the launch of a premium bluefi n tuna. In March, AKVA took a 33.7% stake in software developer Observe Technologies. Observe uses artifi cial intelligence (AI) to help farmers manage automated feeding and has been working with AKVA as a partner for more than two years.
Observe’s software works to co-ordinate feed management using cameras and other hardware. It works across a number of diff erent platforms, so users do not have to replace their existing kit. The company has sold and delivered its AI feeding solution to more than 20 farm sites in fi ve diff erent countries.
Also in March, the surprising news emerged that fi sh farming on the Moon is a possibility within decades, according to a team of French scientists. Future astronauts could take with them live fi sh eggs and, using water that is believed to lie just under the lunar surface, cultivate them into fully grown fi sh. them into fully grown fi sh.
British Columbia-based marine science magazine Hakai reports that to test this theory, scientists from the Montpellier University Space Centre and the French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea (IFREMER) packed sea bass and related meagre fi sh eggs — which they felt were hardier than adult fi sh — into instruments that vibrated and shook them to recreate the experience of blasting off in a Russian Soyuz rocket. The results were impressive, with 76% of the seabass eggs and 95% of the meagre eggs surviving the experience.
IFREMER scientist and lead researcher Cyrille Przybyla said food autonomy represented “an essential challenge” for the future Moon Village planned by the European Space Agency. In June, Scottish salmon farmer Loch Duart announced the introduction of a new “person overboard” (POB) system, which it said would provide greater safety for all its team who work at sea. Once activated on contact with water, the new POB system sends a distress signal to alert all radios, boats and landing craft in the vicinity that the person is overboard.
Loch Duart’s Health and Safety manager, David McKeown, worked with engineering fi rm Watt Marine Ltd. to develop the system. All Loch Duart staff working at sea will be fi tted with a personal location device. If a person goes overboard by accident or due to weather conditions, the device is automatically activated when the life jacket is deployed – all life jackets automatically deploy when in salt sea water. Within 15 seconds of activation, the system sends out a distress signal and alerts all radios, boats and landing craft in the vicinity that the person is overboard. Within 45 seconds the personal location device sets off an audible alarm on the farm, and within one minute the personal location device sends a further distress signal to the Coastguard and other vessels within the area. In September, Fish Farmer reported that University of Stirling researcher Dr Lynne Falconer had been awarded a £1.5m grant for a project that aims to help the aquaculture industry use data to mitigate the impact of climate change.
Dr Falconer was awarded a UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Future Leaders Fellowship award for her proposal to use data from salmon farms located on the coasts of Scotland and Norway to develop tools for better decision-making as the industry faces up to the eff ects of global warming.
She was one of 97 Fellows awarded in the current round of the Future Leaders Fellowships scheme, worth a total of £96m.
Dr Falconer was also a panellist in Fish Farmer’s Climate Change webinar in August, which was hosted in collaboration with InterMET and also featured Anne Anderson, Head of Sustainability and Development with Scottish Sea Farms; Daniel Fairweather, Executive Director, Livestock, Aquaculture and Fisheries with insurance company Gallagher; and Jonathan LaRiviere, Chief Executive of Scoot Science, an ocean analytics and forecasting business based in Santa Cruz, California. In November, an IT engineer with Scottish Sea Farms (SSF) was recognised with an award for his innovative fi sh-counting application.
SSF’s David Lipcsey was named Digital Professional of the Year at The
Above: David Lipcsey Opposite: Saab Seaeye eWROV
Herald Digital Transformation Awards 2021, after using his programming skills to create software to help count fi sh coming into the harvest station at the SSF processing and packing facility at Scalloway, Shetland, where he was working as a supervisor.
The application enables the processing team to adjust the fl ow as and when necessary to minimise stress and maximise animal welfare.
Lipcsey programmed software that was able to capture images of the fl ow of fi sh by “listening” to signals from the harvesting system. The app feeds this data back to the wellboat. The skipper can see on a tablet exactly how many fi sh are going into the harvest station at any given time and increase or reduce the fl ow as necessary to ensure a smooth fl ow, minimise stress and further enhance farmed fi sh welfare. Also in November, Saab Seaeye, a British company building underwater remotely operated vessels (ROVs), signed a potentially ground-breaking deal to sell 10 of its latest eWROV vehicles to marine robotics company Ocean Infi nity for its “Armada” fl eet. The new eWROV underwater robot will be built at Saab Seaeye’s facility in Fareham, Hampshire, in the Solent Freeport. Saab Seaeye said: “The eWROV will play its part in Ocean Infi nity’s mission to use innovative technology to transform operations at sea, enabling people and the planet to thrive. Armada is set to revolutionise the maritime industry.”
Nutritional Analytical Service
A commercial analytical service providing advice and analysis to the aquaculture and food and drink sectors across the world. We are recognised as a centre of excellence for nutritional analysis and offer a wide range of analytical parameters.
Please contact us for a full list of analytical tests offered.
James Dick: j.r.dick@stir.ac.uk Fiona Strachan: fiona.strachan@stir.ac.uk
