Offshore Mariculture 2008

Growing the business

An international two-day conference and technical visits day on how to grow the offshore fish farming business

Introduction

Building on the success of the first Offshore Mariculture 2006 conference and exhibition held in Malta in 2006, the organisers, Mercator Media and The Society for Underwater Technology, will continue with this bi-annual event in Alicante, Spain in 2008.

Offshore Mariculture 2008 will be held at the Alicante Congress Centre on 22-24 October. As before, it will be a two-day conference with the third day dedicated to fish farm and technical centre visits.

To meet the needs of the large Spanish and South American fish farming sector, the conference will offer English:Spanish simultaneous translation.

Growing the Business

The findings of the 2006 conference were that the challenge for the sector was how to grow the business rapidly because the demand for clean, offshore-farmed fish in Europe and worldwide was unceasing. The time for debating the feasibility and potential of offshore mariculture was over.

Specifically the conference found seven objectives for the industry, which, summarised, were:

• Developing technical advances to enable all year farming in harsh sea conditions
• Cost-effective harvesting and stock processing technologies
• Transfer and adaptation of technologies from other offshore sectors
• Adequate onshore facilities for landings and hatcheries
• Sustainable feeding strategies
• Larger enclosures for cost-effectiveness scale and reduced stress for the fish
• Codes of practice for offshore fish farm locations and husbandry techniques

The 2008 conference will include these findings under its four themes of:

• Policy & sustainability
• Technology
• Species & feeds
• Business

Why Spain?

Spain has the largest traditional fishing fleet in Europe and, worldwide, it continues to catch and process fish for global markets. Like other major fishing nations, it has moved into sea water fish farming – mariculture ( production over 40,000 tonnes in 2007) – utilising its knowledge of the seas and the skills of its fishermen.

Spain has fish farms off both its Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts, farming sea bream (production 22,000 tonnes in 2007) , sea bass (production 10,500 tonnes in 2007), and meagre (production 1,000 tonnes in 2007). Recently some major companies have set up deep-water fish farms off the Canary Islands and completely exposed fish farms along the Mediterranean coast.. The conference venue, Alicante, is close to a number of offshore farms and processing centres

The Spanish Association of Marine Fish Farmers (APROMAR) is the supporting organisation for Offshore Mariculture 2008 in Spain and Spanish-speaking countries. The conference proceedings will be operated in English and Spanish through simultaneous translation. The European Aquaculture Society (EAS) is also a supporting organisation and it has a membership in more than 50 countries.

European context

Mariculture is a global business as the demand for seafood worldwide, per capita consumption, is expected to grow by 50% between 2007 and 2030. The challenges of how to grow the business are the same in Europe as elsewhere. The enlarged EU produces 1.3 million tonnes of fishery products valued at €1.3 billion and provides the equivalent of 57,000 full time jobs.

The way ahead for European aquaculture was summed up by European Commissioner Joe Borg recently in introducing their major conference in November 2007 entitled, European aquaculture and its opportunities for development.

“The review of the current aquaculture strategy will seek to unlock its potential for growth while continuing to ensure environmental sustainability and the highest health standards”, he said.

Delegate Fees

Standard rate	: €600 euros
Special rate for APROMAR, EAS and SUT members	: €480 euros
See Registration for further details and booking arrangements