Zhejiang Province, China awarded ten “West Lake Friendship Awards” in 2005 to foreigners who contribute positively to the province’s cultural, scientific or business communities.

The Joint Marine Fish Nutrition Laboratory is located in Shenjiamen in the Zhejiang Province near Shanghai, China’s largest fishing region.

APC has helped to establish a network between Chinese and Norwegian scientists,  focusing on the sustainable utilization of feed resources for the fish farming industry.

The laboratory has the capacity to perform four extensive nutritional experiments simultaneously. Comparative research is undertaken to compare research on salmon in cold water in Norway with studies done on warm-water species in China.

“Consider, for example, feed enzymes, on which we do lots of work. The effect of these enzymes varies, depending on the water temperature. Thus, different strategies may be needed when improving the nutritional quality of ingredients to be used in feed for cold and warm-water species. The laboratory improves the scientists’ ability to understand protein utilization and the demands to raw material quality when developing feed for fish species living under different environmental conditions”, Storebakken said.

The vision of APC’s research is to contribute to the sustainable utilization of protein resources in the national and international fish farming industries. Cooperation with China increases the chances of achieving this goal, because the joint research can focus on the two main sectors of the global fish feed market, warm and cold water species. At the same time, the application range of the research results can be extended. Naturally, colleagues working on warm-water species are highly interested in results from our comparative studies that are directly relevant to their research, underlines Dr.ore Storebakken. [Source: Elin Judit Straumsvåg, APC]