2020: Digital innovation in aquaculture - MonitorShrimp
On February 4th the project “Digitization of land-based shrimp farming in Germany using AI-based analysis of imaging and acoustic systems” officially started. The project is funded by the Federal Office for Agriculture and Food (BLE).
Press Release
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According to a report by the Boston Consulting Group aquaculture is still in its infancy in terms of digitization while industries like media, food, telecommunications and banking have come a long way
This is not only disadvantageous for the fish farmers’ yield parameters, but can sometimes even have a negative effect on animal welfare or health.
Example:
In many aquaculture farms, the feed is distributed manually or automatically to the fish tanks at quantities estimated by feeding tables. The amount of feed is therefore a theoretically calculated amount and is not based on live biomass data or the eating behaviour of the animals. In addition, the actual feeding activity often cannot be perceived visually by the staff due to the turbidity of the water. With intelligent demand based feeding, less food would remain uneaten in the tank.
This has significant positive consequences not only for the profitability of the respective farm, but also for animal welfare. Less overfeeding reduces the particle load in the system, the water quality is improved and the animals are less susceptible to diseases.
With the MonitorShrimp project, this should finally change:
Modern image and sound recording technologies in connection with artificial intelligence, partly also developed by the project partner MonitorFish, already provide the basis for optimized digital fish farming. For example, eating behavior can be recorded and even evaluated indirectly via acoustic signals or typical movement patterns. “What we are missing is mainly biological data”, says the managing director of MonitorFish, Dominik Ewald. This data is now to be compiled for the first time both on a laboratory scale and in operation by the project partners AWI and Förde Garnelen.
Project partners
Within two years, the project partners are planning to bring software onto the market that will enable shrimp farmers to feed shrimp more efficiently in the future and ultimately to produce more economically and to optimize animal welfare.
The duration of the project is two years. Project partners are MonitorFish GmbH, Erwin Sander Elektroapparatebau GmbH and Förde Garnelen GmbH & Co. KG.
The project is coordinated by the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research (AWI).
If you have any questions, please contact Björn Suckow at björn.suckow@awi.de.
