Researchers are identifying greener innovations they want to promote to aqua farmers in the area, such as fish feed from agricultural waste and algae-based alternatives to antibiotics for shrimp.
Photo: IDRC/Bartay.
As part of the country's foreign affairs and development efforts, Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC) is supporting a new research project to promote sustainable aquaculture in the Asia-Pacific region and help develop greener innovations for this vital sector. Specifically, the project will help create a new Aquaculture Innovation and Investment Center in Thailand.
Meeting future global demand for seafood is expected to require a massive increase in aquaculture production globally. Meanwhile, right now, Asia-Pacific produces more than 90% of the world's farmed aquatic food. As a key source of low-carbon protein, aquaculture development can therefore support climate mitigation and livelihoods in this area.
However, it is also believed that without adequate safeguards, aquaculture growth will exacerbate environmental degradation and make farms more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and disease. Therefore, according to Canada's IDRC, for aquaculture to become more sustainable, action is needed from governments, researchers, and also the private sector.
Therefore, to address these challenges, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Network of Aquaculture Centres in Asia-Pacific (NACA) led regional consultations on how to green the sector. The process culminated in a set of new global Guidelines for Sustainable Aquaculture, what FAO and NACA describe as "a white paper on aquaculture transformation."
Launched in Bangkok, Thailand, in July 2024, this Canada's IDRC-supported project 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.
As part of the new hub, researchers are identifying greener innovations to promote, such as fish feed from agricultural waste and algae-based alternatives to shrimp antibiotics, two AQUADAPT projects.
The AQUADAPT initiative is 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 (NbS) in aquaculture in the Asia-Pacific region. This is, it invests in action-based research to enable more resilient and sustainable aquaculture food systems by harnessing the potential of NbS.
Eduardo Leaño, project leader and Director-General of the Network of Aquaculture Centres in Asia-Pacific considers there are promising solutions. In his view, the challenge is to show the private sector that 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 Aquaculture Innovation and Investment Hub will also work with the governments of Fiji, the Philippines, and Thailand to develop greener aquaculture national innovation and investment plans. This joint work will identify the incentives farmers need to change their practices so that the entire sector - from large aquaculture companies employing hundreds of people to small-scale farmers supplying local food markets in the region - can move forward more sustainably.
Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC) champions and funds research and innovation within and alongside developing regions to drive global change. To this end, it invests in high-quality research in developing countries, shares knowledge with researchers and policymakers for wider adoption and use, and mobilizes its global partnerships to build a more sustainable and inclusive world. Headquartered in Ottawa, Canada, it has five regional offices located in Montevideo, Uruguay; Nairobi, Kenya; Dakar, Senegal; Amman, Jordan; and New Delhi, India.