The ninth session of FAO’s Sub-committee on Aquaculture saw a strong focus on working together to overcome challenges facing the global aquaculture sector. The week brought together 188 delegates at FAO Headquarters in Rome hailing from 94 countries to take a critical look at how the sector can help achieve the objectives of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

A US feed ingredient startup, Midwest Ag Enterprises, (MWA), has recently launched a new advanced soy protein feed ingredient, which it claims can replace up to 100% of fishmeal during some stages of marine fish and shrimp growout in aquaculture. The firm has partnered with Mexico\'s XPAND-AG, a feed ingredient distribution startup, to sell these products throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.

During a recent visit to WorldFish, Prince Charles expressed his concern over major challenges in the fish agri-food system where a large percentage of fish caught in the oceans ends up as feed for fish farming. The Prince expressed interest in the work WorldFish has done in the area of sustainable fish feed that did not draw on ocean resources and the institution\'s wider work towards achieving and contributing towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

A new project titled the GoJelly project, coordinated by the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Germany, is investigating potential uses for jellyfish as a source to produce fish feeds, microplastic filters, or fertilizers. The four-year project received EUR 6 million in funding from the European Union, and is being carried out by a consortium of 15 scientific institutions from eight countries. \"Fish in fish farms are currently fed with captured wild fish which does not reduce the problem of overfishing, but increases it. Jellyfish as feed would be much more sustainable and would protect the natural fish stocks.\"

The trū® Shrimp Company, an affiliate of Ralco, announced that it intends to build its first hatchery in Luverne, Minnesota. The hatchery will share a campus with the planned shrimp production facility, Luverne Bay Harbor. Luverne Cove Hatchery will provide for spawning and house larviculture tanks where small post larvae shrimp grow until they are mature enough to be transferred to a Harbor. The hatchery will be able to raise 2 million post-larvae annually, which is enough to supply two fully operational Harbors. “From a bio-security aspect we have been concerned about a hatchery being close to a Harbor. However, in our continuing development we have had an engineering and process breakthrough that enables the hatchery and Harbor to share the same campus.”

The University of Miami has produced a short video titled "The Business of Aquaculture," highlighting aquaculture research activities and opportunities at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. The video features Daniel Benetti, the Rosenstiel School's Director of Aquaculture.

Spain-based tuna supplier Luis Calvo Sanz, known as Grupo Calvo, plans to invest €50 million ($58.1m) in Brazil to build a new plant with improved efficiency within the next ten years, integrating its current facilities in the country into one industrial complex. Gomes da Costa, Calvo\'s business in Brazil, is a leading tuna and sardine brand in the Brazilian market. The company has invested €3.5m in a by-products factory in Brazil for producing fishmeal, fish oil, as well as feed. The factory will currently testing its fishmeal production, the spokesman said.

USSEC, WorldFish, and Skretting have partnered in Egypt’s first Intensive Pond Aquaculture (IPA) system for tilapia production. The USSEC team met with WorldFish staff to review the several-month feeding demonstration, which is being conducted in an IPA production system with the use of high-quality U.S. Soy based feed produced locally by Skretting. Initial results showed a positive 20 to 25 percent faster growth rate; full IPA demonstration results will be available later this winter.

The Aller Aqua Group has inaugurated its sixth factory, Aller Aqua Qingdao. The factory in China will focus on the growing cold-water species aquaculture industry in China. “We chose to establish the factory without a local partner to ensure that we can continue to deliver the products that the customers are familiar with. We have delivered high quality aquafeed to China for the last 20 years, produced under European standards, and we will continue to run the factory like we would in Denmark. We will do this by sourcing the raw materials in Europe, and ensure a highly trained local team which knows how to comply with the European standards.”

Results from a recently published study \"Tailoring seed oil composition in the real world: optimising omega-3 long chain polyunsaturated fatty acid accumulation in transgenic Camelina sativa\" demonstrated that plants have the ability to yield oils rich in omega-3 that can be used in aquatic feeds. In this study, the group tailored the seed oil profile to reduce the omega-6 content, and evaluated the performance of such GM plants under field conditions (i.e. environmental releases), in terms of agronomic performance and also the lipidomic profile of seed oil.

IFFO’s 57th Annual Conference came to a close last night with the announcement of the winners of the IFFO Awards. Aller Aqua won a Leadership and Innovation Award for their expansion work in Africa, and American Seafoods Co. won a Leadership Award for their work in driving fisheries improvements in their industries. \"This year’s winners showed that taking brave steps in expanding to the new markets and improving sustainable practices can both strengthen your business and ensure the continued prosperous growth of our marine ingredients industry.\"

Skretting ARC\'s new PhD Dr. Rebecca Heavyside has successfully defended her thesis, which explored some possible modes of action for functional microingredients in anti-sea lice feeds. The results generated by Dr. Heavyside’s research indicate that more sustainable and natural functional feeds can be developed as a method of sea lice control in salmonid aquaculture as part of a wider integrated pest management approach. “We want to understand and optimize how microingredients modulate the immune system of salmon to strengthen their natural defenses and counteract the effects of the sea lice.\"

Shipowners\' increasing tendency to equip their vessels with refrigeration capacity is allowing more pelagic fish trimmings to used in fishmeal, the trade group IFFO said. Utilization rates of trimmings have crept up to about 33% from about 25% a decade ago and will continue to rise as companies renew their fleets. The use of trimmings, and improved sustainable fishing practices around the world, means that the pelagic industry will continue to be “strategic ingredients” in the future.

Gibran El Farizy, a student in Indonesia, established a startup aimed at making fish farming more efficient and productive. eFishery primarily produces cost-effective automatic fish-feeding machines. The device allows fish and shrimp farmers to schedule feeding times through a monitoring app on their smartphones, which has helped farmers save feed and use less time and energy to feed their fish.

BioMar Group’s Karmøy production facility has officially opened Line 3, which has an annual capacity of 140,000 tonnes of fish feed, increasing the output of the Karmøy facility by around 70%. BioMar Group has invested NOK 436 million at Karmøy in connection with the construction of production Line 3 and its associated auxiliary systems, new laboratories and control rooms. “Our new production line will be a substantial new resource for our business. It is a highly sophisticated line for which we have endeavored to find the best solutions available worldwide for the efficient and sustainable production of salmon feed for the future.”

Cargill announced it has signed a binding agreement to acquire Diamond V. This acquisition, which follows Cargill’s recent investment in Delacon, will give Cargill market-leading participation in the $20 billion global animal feed additives market. “This acquisition strengthens Cargill’s and Diamond V’s shared vision to be a leader in creating new solutions for evolving consumer preferences for sustainable and wholesome food production. Our combined businesses will accelerate growth, build industry-leading capabilities and natural solutions for animal health and food safety, and help fulfill Cargill’s purpose to nourish the world in a safe, responsible and sustainable way.”

Following a request from the Competent Authority of France, the Panel on Additives and Products or Substances used in Animal Feed (FEEDAP) was asked to deliver a scientific opinion on the safety and the nutritional value of a biomass produced by fermentation with Escherichia coli, a by-product of the production of lysine, as a feed material for pigs, ruminants and salmonids. The panel did not identify risks for human and animal health or the environment from the biomass regarding the genetic modification of the strain, and found that PL73 (LM) is safe for salmonids up to a dietary concentration of 13%.

The Sustainable Fisheries Partnership’s (SFP) has released its annual sustainability overview of reduction fisheries for 2017, and according to the report, the aquaculture feed industry has played an important role in promoting improvement through its support for fishery improvement projects. Furthermore, the fishmeal and fish oil sector has also played a strong role in promoting more responsible management of reduction fisheries. \"Praise is due the aquaculture feed manufacturing industry that has played a constructive role in supporting fishery improvement projects in key reduction fisheries. However, despite the good news from the eastern Pacific and Atlantic, it is still the case that almost half the world’s fishmeal comes from fisheries in Asia that are poorly documented and managed. The next challenge for the fishmeal and fish oil industry and the users of their products will be to catalyze improvements in Asian fisheries.\"

A new study has found that mealworm meal does not perform as well as soybean or fish meal proteins in LCA. The study assessed the environmental performance of mealworm (Tenebrio molitor) larvae meal via life cycle assessment (LCA) from cradle to mill gate and found that with an FCR of 1.98, feeding mealworm meal to poultry or fish would decrease the economic and environmental efficiency of these production systems. \"These recent results highlight gray areas in sustainable mass-rearing systems; however, several important value-chain issues need to be addressed before continuing development of insect production for the animal-feed sector.\"

A new deal which could help to create value from sludge produced by the aquaculture industry has been signed this week. The deal involves Blue Ocean Technology and water treatment solution provider Sorbwater Technology. “The co-operation minimises emissions in water and puts a value on sludge from the aquaculture industry.”