On Monday April 20, AQUAPHOENIX brought together high-level stakeholders for a special side event during One Ocean Week in Bergen. “Circular Aquaculture for Sustainable Food Production” was hosted by AQUAPHOENIX partners NORCE (project coordinator) and Ragn-Sells, with support from NCE Seafood.
Speakers included producers, technology innovators, researchers, industry actors and policy experts, who gathered to contribute their expertise in smart, circular aquaculture and the frameworks that enable these solutions.
Sessions covered the sustainable opportunities in the aquaculture industry, explored examples of technology and systems innovations for circular aquaculture, and took stock of what is needed from the policy and regulatory side to pursue these opportunities and scale up innovations. The event ended with a panel discussion on the essential role of collaboration across the value chain to realise clean aquaculture’s potential, and what shared responsibilities emerge along the way.
The event was also an opportunity to share AQUAPHOENIX with a wider audience of ocean and blue economy stakeholders. Speakers explained the challenge that lies at the heart of the project: fish in open pen aquaculture pens produce sludge (waste), which contains high levels of nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen. To guard against pollution and increase production sustainably, AQUAPHOENIX partners are working to collect and recycle this nutrient-rich material.
As Terje Ljones from FRAMO AS noted, the technologies for collecting sludge already exist. FRAMO leads AQUAPHOENIX efforts to scale up this technology, and is currently working to further develop sludge collection with fish farmers who are also involved in the project in Norway and Åland. As Kristine Dahlgren of Eide Fjordbruk (a key industry partner in AQUAPHOENIX who are piloting sludge collection) demonstrated, producers are already implementing solutions for sustainable production, ecosystem health and the security of our food systems.
— said Stephanie Van Der Poel from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
AQUAPHOENIX project’s approach is not confined to sludge collection. Researchers involved in the project are evaluating the environmental impacts of sludge collection, while industry partners are working to advance pathways for using salvaged sludge in new ways. As Anders Bjerga of Ragn-Sells explained, AQUAPHOENIX aims to advance technology that uses sludge in new ways – for example, through the recovery and recycling of nutrients into new assets like fertiliser, novel feed ingredients, and clean energy.
A key takeaway from the event’s discussions is that policy and incentives are needed to scale and increase uptake of solutions. This would help make approaches like sludge collection and recycling practically feasible and economically viable for a wider range of industry actors.
— as Hans Kleivdal (NORCE) stated.
