Lack of skilled staff is one of the threats that aquaculture sector is facing for years. Even improving the education system to attract more students may not help to solve the problem. Among the reasons, why young people prefer to find job in other industries is the location of fish farms. Especially now when labour shortage is a serious issue in almost any sector.
Moving the production closer to urban areas, e.g. thanks the RAS farms, can help to attract new professionals but it is not possible in a large scale. The expected growing demand on sea products necessary to guarantee sufficient food supply of world population and the further fishing restrictions will require more fish farms around the world.
Source: FAO
What is the future of aquaculture sector?
Although there are people who prefer wild fish due to its taste, nowadays it is impossible to fish enough seafood. Therefore farming sector will continue to grow. Not just because it can cover the human food demand. It is also so, because there are new technological solutions that help to control the complete farming process and with less impact on environment.
We can mention some other advantages especially in case of RAS systems:
- farming is independent on seasonal conditions
- less water consumption
- fish welfare is under control
- more traceability information for consumer
For all these reasons the aquaculture will growth. According FAO the production of aquatic animals directly used for human consumption reached 157 million tonnes in 2020, the second highest on record. In addition, its prevision is that aquatic food production is forecast to increase by a further 15 % by 2030.
Source: FAO
Analysing the impact of labour shortage in aquaculture
If it is already difficult to find staff for farms now, with increased demand and more farms around the world the need will be even higher.
The aquaculture industry is highly dependent on the availability of qualified labour, and a shortage can have an enormous impact on its operations. Already during COVID it was possible to see how labour shortage led to incurred costs and affected the production at farms.
Therefore, one of the solutions is to update existing farms with modern technologies. It may help reducing the staff needed at farms and contribute to better control of all farming processes. In case of feeding, that is one of the key element in farming due to the percentage of feed costs on total expenses. Investing in automated feeding systems contributes to reduction of feed consumption, controlled and more precise feeding, as well as to maintain the fish treatability.
Some feeding systems, like the ones manufactured by Fish Farm Feeder, can be controls on distance. Remote feeding control simplifies the production and its management.
Resuming, the labour shortage can be solved by implementing automated systems into the farming. That way one person can be in charge of several and different roles within the farm, without losing the volume of farmed fish and at the same time improving other elements towards more environmentally sustainable aquaculture.
What elements are controlled by automated feeding systems?
In case of feeding systems offered by Fish Farm Feeder the software contains a program that permits to setup feeding parameters, among others feeding time, dosing, etc. The staff has access to reports so it is possible to see if/how the parameters have been changed and if any anomaly has occurred.
More information about how the automated feeding system influences the farm management you can find in the following article -> here.
