July 14, 2020

 

Bluegrove aims to use new technology in aquaculture sector

 

Bluegrove, a Norway-based aquatech company, is planning to use modern technology and computing solutions to revolutionise the aquaculture sector, SeafoodSource reported.

 

Bluegrove was formed at the end of June between aquaculture technology firm CageEye and fish farming equipment maker NorseAqua.

 

Using Internet of Things (IoT), machine learning, and more advanced technologies, the company is setting its sights on the shrimp aquaculture industry, among other markets. But first, the company plans to solidify its base, and the industry that gave it its start which is salmon aquaculture.

 

"Chile is our first overseas port of call. We had planned to move into seven other markets this year, we should have been at Aquaculture UK in May, but COVID-19 put that on hold, for example. So we'll probably be looking to expand later this year or early next year," said Sunil Kadri, CageEye's director of international business development.

 

Kadri said the company also sees shrimp aquaculture as "ripe for development.'

 

"It has lots of potential improvements to make. The shrimp industry is huge, there's lots of farms out there, with a lot of area dedicated to farming, with a wide range of tech development, starting with the very basic," he said. "Then you've got other areas like tilapia and pangasius."

 

For the moment, in Chile, Bluegrove is running two projects.

 

"In both cases, we chose the companies as we felt they had the right culture to do this, so there's been close interaction with management and the people in the field. We've established communication groups, we have a staff member in Norway who actually studied in Puerto Montt [in southern Chile], and her background is fish. She keeps the daily rapport with the people at the site feeding the fish. So, there's a direct communication with them to help them realise the value of the technology. Not just understanding it, which you get with training, but also seeing its full potential," Kadri said, refraining from naming the companies with which Bluegrove is working.

 

Chile has, according to Kadri, some advantages and disadvantages for the company's plans, and sometimes those two things go hand-in-hand.

 

"Chile is still a bit behind when it comes to infrastructure, but that's being addressed, and where some may see an advantage, but I see as a disadvantage, is they have very low-paid staff at the sites [who are] directly interacting with the fish," he added. "As we become more technologized and more automated so that the humans are interacting with the fish through technology or directly, in order to ensure we get the best outcome, we need to invest in the people. I've always said that. You need people who are properly educated and trained, and happy at their jobs, and they're able to make use of the tools available."

 

In aquaculture, IoT-enabled environmental sensors can help farmers understand the impact of wind conditions, water temperature, oxygen content, and water currents. Combining hydroacoustic sensors with machine learning helps read the behaviour of the fish and respond to their feeding requirements. The result is that less feed is required to effectively attend to a larger mass of fish.

 

Currently, Bluegrove's core technology focus is on feeding, but the other area that it is capable of providing information on is monitoring of fish health and welfare, Kadri noted.

 

"It will be in a second stage, that kind of analysis needs to be done manually or watched on the screen. It's an area of development that's in our pipeline and high on the list," he said. "The machine can recognise a pattern at daytime, nighttime, high tide, low tide, and when there's a deviation from that pattern, even a small change, the system can provide an alert to the fish farm. That's one area, the other is that as the machine learns more, it can begin to predict disease, sea lice, or algae blooms. All these things that are big on fish behaviour. That's the other area we'll go into with this core technology."

 

The executive highlighted Chile's explosive salmon industry growth in the mid-2000s and the resulting environmental degradation.

 

Reduced waste of feed, together with integrated multitrophic aquaculture—where fish by-products, including waste, are reused as fertilisers or food in another area—can contribute to regeneration, he said.

 

According to company CEO Bendik Søvegjarto, it was created to help provide sufficient food with the global population expanding to 10 billion people by 2050, with the resulting demand for food soaring.

 

Bluegrove said its technologies help shape the Internet of Species (IoS), which has the potential to bring on an ecological revolution in agriculture, aquaculture, and forestry, where humans' needs merge with those of other species and nature more broadly.

 

Alongside the founding of Bluegrove, the company announced the launch of the Bluegrove Foundation, which will look to work with local communities in creating healthy environments and optimising sustainable food production, both at sea and on land.