August 5, 2013
Republic Polytechnic hosts Singapore's inaugural Aquaculture Industry Engagement Day
Republic Polytechnic and the Tropical Marine Science Institute (TMSI) of the National University of Singapore jointly held the inaugural Aquaculture Industry Engagement Day in Singapore on August 2.
With 150 people from government agencies, research institutes, and industry players that include representatives from Singapore's Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority (AVA), A*Star and Oceanus in attendance, the full-day event kicked off in Singapore at Republic Polytechnic campus.
Keynote speaker, Dr Thierry Chopin, Scientific Director of Canadian Integrated Muilti-Tropic Aquaculture Network and professor of Marine Biology at the University of New Brunswick in Saint John, brought up the focus of the event and the major problems that the world currently faces: food scarcity, environmental sustainability and fish science capability.
Dr Chopin stressed in his speech that the growing population presented a looming challenge of food security, which has led the world to turn increasingly to aquaculture for food, making it the fast growing food product sector. However, with 76% of food source coming from animals and 24% from seaweed, aquaculture is the opposite of agriculture, which is 82% from plants and 18% from animals. This, together with the pressing issue of over-fishing, poses a bigger challenge: sustainability of the aquaculture industry.
With years of experience in research on the subject, Dr Chopin proposes that the solution lies with the Integrated Muilti-Tropic Aquaculture (IMTA) systems, which aim to promote environmental sustainability, economic stability and societal acceptability.
IMTA redefines aquaculture and how it works within an ecosystem by considering nutrient trading credits (NTC) for nitrogen, phosphorous and carbon, similar to how carbon trading credit works. It also considers aquaculture from the perspective of aquanomics, which brings together environment, economic and social issues in sustainable aquaculture; and in the broader context of integrated coastal zone management.
Based on the concepts of IMTA, species from different trophic levels are cultivated in proximity, based on complementary function in the ecosystem. This is built on the principle that what is waste to one species is fodder for another species. By cultivating these species together, bio-mitigation and recovery of nutrients is possible, and allows product diversification and thus risk reduction to producers.
Dr Philip Chew Hong, Group Director at AVA, highlighted the achievement of the local aquaculture: Singapore's local fish production increased to an estimated 8.2% in 2012 from 4.5% in 2009, while cutting down the daily man-hour from 2.5 hours to 0.5 hours. Echoing Dr Chopin's view by acknowledging the constraints of the industry, Dr Hong also announced a target to raise the proportion of locally-produced fish to 15% of total local fish consumption, from the current 7%.
The government's goal to reduce the country's dependence on imported fish for consumption will inevitably involve efforts from both academia and industry players. Professor Peter Ng, Director of TMSI, noted, "Good science underpinned by good business sense will be the hallmarks of a successful and sustainable aquaculture programme. Only then can there be real food security."
"Singapore is both land and resource scarce, and this presents a unique problem for local aquaculture and our researchers. Producing huge quantities of cheap fish, and just of a few kinds, is not enough. We need quality as well as diversity, and we must encourage the local industry to play an active role in producing seafood for Singapore, by making it economically viable," he also commented.
Republic Polytechnic also announced that it would be introducing a Diploma in Marine Science and Aquaculture, at an investment of SGD500,000 (US$394,725.54) on lab equipment. The polytechnic aims to nurture a relevant and skilled workforce in marine biology and conservation, aquaculture technology and marine coastal ecology.
