The aquaculture industry is very competitive and there are concerns about an economic downturn and lower profit margins. In addition, the current spike in energy prices and increased inflation create a very difficult business environment overall. In those times, farmers look where they can save money in production. The need for the development of alternative and sustainable aquaculture feed is also explained in the EIT Food blog post  “Why alternative and sustainable fish feeds are needed”, which explains why conventional fish feeds are unsustainable.
There are several notable developments with regards to production of low-cost fish feed. For one, an agreement was signed this month (July 2022) with the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD) to develop low-cost aquafeeds based on novel ingredients. This is particularly good news for fish farmers in several sub-Saharan countries as they will be the first to test the newly developed feeds.  This development is part of the project “Development and Scaling of Sustainable Feeds for Resilient Aquatic Food Systems in Sub-Saharan Africa (FASA)” which will run from 2022 to 2027 and is funded with approximately 8 million Euro.

This is where the EIT Food-funded AGAPE project leverages artificial intelligence to guide workers and experts in their needs for upskilling and reskilling to address these and future challenges.