Driving more sustainable aquaculture innovation in the Asia-Pacific region

 
A new IDRC-supported research project was recently launched to promote sustainable aquaculture in the Asia-Pacific region and help develop greener innovations for this vital sector.
A hatchery owner in Vietnam feeds fish a prepared pellet food.
IDRC/Bartay
The Network of Aquaculture Centres in Asia-Pacific and FutureFish launch an AQUADAPT project, July 4-5, 2024, in Bangkok, Thailand.

Asia-Pacific produces over 90% of the world’s farmed aquatic foods. Meeting future global demand for fish and seafood is expected to require massive increases in aquaculture production. As a key source of low-carbon protein, aquaculture development can support climate mitigation and livelihoods.

Without adequate safeguards, however, aquaculture’s growth will exacerbate environmental degradation and make farms more vulnerable to climate change and disease shocks. For aquaculture to become more sustainable, actions from governments, researchers and the private sector are needed.

To address these challenges, the Food and Agriculture Organization and the Network of Aquaculture Centres in Asia-Pacific led regional consultations on how to green the sector. The process culminated in a sustainable aquaculture transformation roadmap white paper.

The IDRC-supported project, which was launched in Bangkok, Thailand, in July 2024 will help a new Aquaculture Innovation and Investment Hub drive this roadmap’s agenda as a one-stop shop, linking innovators, investors and producers to scale innovations.

The project is part of the AQUADAPT initiative, a four-year partnership between IDRC and Global Affairs Canada that addresses the intertwined challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss and food insecurity through applied research on nature-based solutions in aquaculture in the Asia-Pacific region.

As part of the new hub, researchers are identifying greener innovations to champion, such as fish feeds from agriculture wastes and algae-based alternatives to shrimp antibiotics, two AQUADAPT projects. The hub will also work with governments in Fiji, the Philippines and Thailand to develop greener aquaculture national innovation and investment plans. 

For Eduardo Leaño, project leader and director-general of the Network of Aquaculture Centres in Asia-Pacific, promising solutions exist. The challenge, according to him, is to show the private sector that the innovations are really working at the farm level, to encourage them to invest. This means finding technologies that can make aquaculture both greener and more profitable, and then sharing that knowledge. 

The hub will also work with governments to identify the incentives that farmers need to change practices so that the entire sector can move forward more sustainably — from the large aqua-businesses that employ hundreds of people to the small-scale farmers who supply the region’s local food markets.

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