15 minute read
Innovation and Funding
Funding the future
Innovation and R&D are essential for aquaculture, but they need fi nance
BY SANDY NEIL
Fi� y years ago in 1970, off the island of Hitra in Norway two brothers, Ove and Sivert Grøntvedt, put 20,000 Atlan� c salmon smolts into large fl oa� ng octagonal cages they had designed and built. Their innova� ve cage design – inexpensive, strong, and simple to assemble – made it easier to feed the salmon, and created a barrier against predators. It became the world’s fi rst successful salmon farm, and a founda� on of Norway’s aquaculture industry. In 1971, Norway exported 886 tonnes of salmon; last year it reached a record 1.1 million tonnes. Today 14 million meals of Norwegian salmon are eaten daily worldwide.
Fish farming has come a long way since it began, when it was simply pens in the ocean. Today salmon aquaculture is one of the most technologically advanced farming systems in the world. From the design of the pens, to their loca� on, to how the fi sh are fed and handled, salmon aquaculture is a science based on decades of knowledge and precision, and the industry con� nues to build on experience to further refi ne the farming process for the benefi t of the fi sh, the environment and the consumer.
Innova� ons come through many avenues—scien� fi c research, novel materials, and fl oat and net technologies. The salmon farming industry has led many breakthroughs, evidence that when there’s money to be made by crea� ng and marke� ng a high-end product, investments in technology tend to follow. In the last fi � y years, many other innova� ons radically transformed the produc� on process in salmon aquaculture, in breeding, water recircula� on, and telemetry.
What might the next revolu� onary innova� on be? And, when some bright spark has a brilliant idea, how easily can it be turned into reality?
First, what is currently driving technological innova� on in aquaculture? Fish supplies 17% of all the protein consumed in the world, according to the UN Food and Agricultural Organisa� on. By 2030, the world is expected to eat 20% more fi sh than in 2016. Aquaculture will play a key role in taking pressure off our oceans, but it also needs to tackle its own environmental challenges, like the impact of farms on the marine ecosystem and the industry’s use of wild-caught fi sh to feed farmed fi sh.
More outside-the-sea-cage thinking will be required to move the industry forward into its next era. In the words of one of America’s greatest innovators Thomas Edison: “There’s a be� er way to do it – fi nd it.”
One solu� on is fi sh farming off shore. As salmon farms move deeper into the high seas, they require increasing autonomy, using high defi ni� on cameras and submerged automa� c feeders, to reduce the need for human travel to and from the cages. In 2017, Norwegian company SalMar began opera� ng Ocean Farm 1, which it called the world’s fi rst off shore fi sh farm. The pilot facility—68 meters high and 110 meters wide—was fi � ed with 20,000 sensors for monitoring and feeding up to 1.5 million Atlan� c salmon.
Cage design is also being improved. In Norway, SeaFarming Systems based in Stavanger is developing the “Aquatraz” cage, which off ers a high level of security and pollu� on control through its hard shell confi gura� on.
In Scotland in 2021, Inverness-based SME Aqua Innova� on secured funding via the UK Seafood
Photo: Steinar Johansen MNH
Innova� on Fund to design the “SeaCAP 6000” – a new fl oa� ng, contained 6,000m3 pen to grow salmon smolts to full harvest weight. Rodger Taylor, the inventor of the SeaCAP, said: “Although signifi cant progress has been made in recent years, current salmon farming s� ll encounters various challenges associated with ‘open water’ produc� on, related to water quality, environmental pollu� on, and fi sh escapes. The unsecured perimeters of current produc� on systems also make the salmon vulnerable to disease, algae, sea lice, jellyfi sh and predators. We believe the SeaCAP has the poten� al to transform both Sco� sh and global salmon produc� on.”
Fish farmers are also moving pens onto shore. This year Grieg Seafood became the fi rst global salmon producer to invest in land-based salmon farming. The venture, Årdal Aqua, will produce post-smolt and rear salmon to harvest size in a new land-based facility in Rogaland, Norway.
“What we know for sure is that the world will need a lot more healthy and nutri� ous food with the lowest possible impact,” said Andreas Kvame, CEO of Grieg Seafood and Chair of Årdal Aqua. “For a long � me, we have invested in post-smolt, where we keep the fi sh longer on land before we release it into the sea, as an important part of the solu� on. With Årdal Aqua we will be able to develop this farming method further. We aim for all of our fi sh in Rogaland to spend less than one year in the sea.”
The company aims to start construc� on in autumn this year, with an eventual produc� on capacity of 5,000 tonnes annually.
Sensors and data-derived services are targe� ng farm effi ciency. One such new technology provides a health journal for each fi sh. In 2020, Norway-based Cermaq launched its a health journal for each fi sh. In 2020, Norway-based Cermaq launched its $63.7m iFarm project with the goal of monitoring not just an en� re cage of salmon, but each individual fi sh. Harald Takle, Cemaq’s head of research and innova� on, explained: “In today’s salmon farms we manage all the fi sh in a pen the same way. This means that if some fi sh in a pen have sea lice, all fi sh are treated. The fi sh are stressed by the treatment and we treat far too many fi sh. “iFarm uses digital recogni� on of the fi sh. This allows us to monitor factors including growth, sea lice, disease, lesions and other aspects that aff ect the health and welfare of the individual fi sh. In addi� on, it is possible to separate healthy fi sh from the fi sh that need treatment, for example against sea lice. Thus, the extent of sea lice treatment will be drama� cally reduced. In addi� on, mortali� es in produc� on will be reduced by 50–75%. The digitalisa� on will also provide authori� es with real-� me data of the status of all the fi sh.” Increasing automa� on is also found in hatcheries. For example Alvestad Marin’s AutoTend robo� c system uses machine vision and learning to iden� fy dead eggs and fry, and remove them, without human interven� on. The circular economy aims to redefi ne growth, focusing on using resources for as long as possible, to extract the maximum value and reduce waste. In the Faroes in 2018, Bakkafrost invested in
Opposite: The iFarm (top), SME Aqua Innova� on’s SeaCAP 6000 Above: Aquatraz-g3-008 Left: Andreas Kvame (top); Regin Jacobsen Below: Ocean Farm 1
the islands’ fi rst biogas plant, which will convert up to 90,000–100,000 tonnes annually of all waste from salmon and dairy farms.
Bakkafrost’s CEO Regin Jacobsen explained: “This will provide enough renewable heat for 400 homes and electricity for 1,900 homes. This is projected to save 11,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions and produce 40,000–45,000 tonnes of natural liquid fer� liser annually.”
Given the expected growth of the farmed salmon industry, it is impera� ve that alterna� ve feed sources are found to reduce the dependency on wild stocks.
Improving the feed conversion ra� o (FCR) – the amount of feed needed to increase an animal’s bodyweight by one kilogram – is not just about looking at the feed ingredients, but also gene� cs, the environment (temperature, oxygen and light) and fi sh husbandry. So far the salmon farming industry has reduced its FCR from 1.9:1 in the 1980s to 1.15:1 on average today, making it one of the most effi cient sources of protein available.
The industry has also been looking for innova� ve alterna� ve ingredients that include fa� y omega-3 acids (EPA and DHA), without relying solely on fi sh oil. US feed giant Cargill is helping to develop many novel sources, such as algal oils, canola, insect meal, and Calysta’s FeedKind protein material, a sustainable ingredient made from fermenta� on of methane gas.
In the UK, Deep Branch has developed a low carbon animal feed with a nutri� onal profi le comparable with fi shmeal, by using microbes to convert CO2 from industrial emissions into a new type of single-cell protein called Proton.
Peter Rowe, CEO of Deep Branch, said: “In the UK, and in Europe, poultry and farmed fi sh are usually fed on fi shmeal and soy, which is mainly imported from South America and has a huge environmental impact. We are developing a new, sustainable way of producing animal feed, which reduces CO2 emissions by more than 90 percent, compared to the currently used protein sources.”
Innova� on needs three key ingredients: the knowledge to create it, the money to fund it, and the infrastructure to implement it. Of these, perhaps the biggest barrier facing innovators is fi nding funding.
On hand to help are many private investors, such as Aqua-Spark, based in Utrecht, the Netherlands. The company aims to develop an “op� mal aquaculture food system by inves� ng in companies all along the aquaculture value chain working to solve industry challenges, with a shared vision of a sustainable future”.
Among Aqua-Spark’s investments are Sogn Aqua, Calysta, Ace Aquatec, Swedish Algae Factory, Molofeed, Biofi shency, Energaia, Fisher Piscicultura, CageEye, Pro� x and XpertSea.
Hatch Blue, a start-up accelerator focused on the aquaculture industry, also off ers funding and business support for talented aquaculture start-ups. A� er three years in opera� on, Hatch has invested in 38 companies, run three successful cohorts, and raised its fi rst $8m fund.
Green bonds, also referred to as climate bonds, raise funds for new and exis� ng projects which deliver environmental benefi ts and a more sustainable economy. The green bond market has seen exponen� al growth, reaching its most substan� al milestone yet in December 2020, with $1 trillion in cumula� ve issuance since market incep� on in 2007.
Then there are the public bodies such as Innovate UK, funded by a grant-in-aid from the UK government. Since 2007, this organiza� on has invested around £2.5bn to help businesses across the country to innovate, with match funding from industry taking the total value of projects above £4.3bn. It has helped 8,500 organisa� ons create around 70,000 jobs and, Inniovate UK says, added an es� mated £18bn of value to the UK economy.
Another funder is the Sustainable Aquaculture Innova� on Centre (SAIC), which “acts as a link between industry and academia, bringing together consor� a of interested par� es to collaborate on some of these big challenges.” To date, SAIC has invested around £5.4m into collabora� ve research, and helped fund and run 32 collabora� ve research projects.
“We recently announced funding for eight new projects – valued at £2.2m – to support sustainable development,” the SAIC’s CEO Heather Jones told Fish Farmer. “Digi� sa� on will lead to greater access to data which can aid farm management by providing real-� me informa� on about variables such as
Top: Ardal Aqua impression Above: Heather Jones Opposite: Sco� sh Salmon Company salmon pens
site condi� ons and fi sh performance. We are also suppor� ng a suite of projects targe� ng improved fi sh health and welfare, including rapid diagnos� cs and tools to iden� fy how nutri� on can boost immunity and resistance to disease.
“Research will cover everything from breathing challenges of fi sh (complex gill disease), improved control of sea lice via biological solu� ons through the use of cleaner fi sh, and the use of novel engineering systems such as snorkel nets. We are also looking at shellfi sh, with projects to support mussel farmers to increase returns by iden� fying the causes of shell damage and biofouling.
“Climate change is an unavoidable context for the sector and all of the innova� on projects we are suppor� ng are underpinned by sustainability. For instance, researchers are looking at novel feed solu� ons through joint projects with the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council that will reduce the reliance on imported fi shmeal. Addi� onally, aligned with the Farmed Fish Health Framework, we are helping to iden� fy future research op� ons that will help trout, salmon and shellfi sh farmers to be be� er informed about the presence of harmful algal blooms.”
Is there enough funding for research and development in the aquaculture sector? “The industry itself is strongly commi� ed to reinves� ng funds into research and development, and there are many examples of that happening without public subsidy,” she says. “However, there are a number of global challenges that dwarf the capacity of any single organisa� on to try and tackle these alone.”
Jones adds: “SAIC aims to make our own funding applica� on process easy to understand and engage with. Our team of aquaculture innova� on managers are readily available to off er guidance and support to applicants or poten� al applicants, at any � me in the funding cycle.
“However, our funding criteria will not suit all projects, which is why we off er advice on other funding opportuni� es and how to access them – whether from Europe, the UK’s Seafood Innova� on Fund, or other grants available across Scotland such as from the Marine Scotland Fund, Zero Waste Scotland and the Sco� sh Government’s Climate Challenge Fund. Our advisory support recognises that, with the plethora of other grant schemes in existence, naviga� ng through to the best op� on can feel daun� ng, especially for fi rst-� me applicants.”
Has Brexit made innova� on harder or easier? Following the UK-EU referendum, the Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland (MASTS), a pool of marine research talent with more than 750 researchers and resources of over £66 million annually, advised its members to “keep calm and carry on”.
At last, the scien� sts may have an answer, as explained by the Royal Society: “The EU-UK Trade and Coopera� on Agreement and accompanying legal texts allow the UK to par� cipate in the ninth EU Framework Programme, Horizon Europe, as an associated country. This gives UK based researchers access to the European Research Council, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Ac� ons, grant funding from the European Innova� on Council, as well as the right to par� cipate in and lead consor� a with EU and interna� onal partners.”
The spirit of innova� on is alive in Scotland. A new Sco� sh Marine Technology Park on the banks of the Clyde, consis� ng of 50 acres with its own deep water, heavy li� berth, aims to boost the river’s tradi� onal strengths in shipping, shipbuilding and marine engineering, while fostering new sectors to breathe life into the currently derelict area.
“This innova� ve facility off ers a common marine facility, with opportuni� es across marine manufacture, ship repair, renewables, marine electrical and marine service provision,” its brochure explains. “Together, this will form an impressive cluster, enabling like-minded, complimentary companies to thrive on a common, innova� ve space.”
The park is expected to support 615 construc� on jobs, 750 marine manufacturing roles and 305 retail and offi ce based posi� ons, contribu� ng £65.5m to the city economy each year. Let’s hope it will be fi lled with innovators. FF
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