And it is particularly important that such optimisation is adapted to the specific species, the local environmental variations where the production is taking place as well as the individual fish farmer's internal goals.
Knowledge-based optimisation
The production optimisation is based on Nofima's interdisciplinary knowledge and experience in implementing optimisation projects at commercial fish farms. This has provided broad competence within relevant issues in aquaculture associated with nutrition, environment and quality as well as scientific documentation of different farmed species.
In this way, basic knowledge from previous and current research projects is converted into practically applied knowledge for the industry, e.g. to reduce feed costs, cut the production time of the seawater phase and to make the production more predictable.
Raising competence of personnel at all levels
The aquaculture industry is reliant on a high level of competence in order to succeed in the global competition. One example where we notice this is the industry's own desire to have enhanced competence of all employees as one of the goals of the optimisation projects.
Consequently, an important aspect of production optimisation is project meetings, courses and seminars in which animal technicians, operational managers and the administrative management can participate.
Important tools in production control
Colour and fat content are extremely important quality parameters in the production of edible fish. It is therefore important for fish farmers to follow the development in these characteristics through the entire production phase in order to steer towards the correct quality at the time of slaughter. In addition, it is important to be able to document the colour- and fat quality for costumers & consumers.
Scientists at Nofima Marin have developed the analytical tool PhotoFish to enable swift and cheap analysis of fat and pigment content in fish fillet. Also, Nofima Mat is working on an analytical tool to carry out quality analyses on live fish.
Further description
