Aquaculture Technology Trends

Before we dive into our scenarios that intersect technology trends with climate change over the coming articles, let's start with a brief background on how we have categorised technology trends into two main groups:

“Extreme Tech” vs “Adaptation Tech”

1. Extreme Tech - This category includes innovative approaches to food production that may have a slower acceptance rate under normal circumstances. Examples include technologies related to autonomous remote farming in the deep sea, fully integrated automated hybrid systems for animal and plant food production, cultured meat, 3D-printed food, and biotechnological gene editing of food sources.

2. Adaptation Tech - This category focuses on gradual adaptations and increased efficiencies in today's methods of production. It primarily involves the full adoption of Industry 4.0 in manufacturing processes, demand-driven production, reduction of inputs (such as energy and feed), and optimising growth based on advanced traditional biological approaches, including breeding and feeding.

From a technological perspective, both categories are highly intriguing, and there are some truly fascinating developments occurring in each. The question is more about which of the approaches under development will have a bigger relevance or impact in the future.

Below are some examples to illustrate where the coming years will take us.

Extreme Tech Do it differently

Adaptation Tech Do what we do - just better

Artificial (enclosed) growth systems (on-shore, urban, desert) Autonomous remote farming (deep-sea, off-shore) Integrated Co-culture with plants in combined automated production systems (& seawater adaptation of plants) Lab-grown/cultured meat Additive/3D-printed food production Genetic modification of species using gene-editing (or accelerated “traditional” breeding / evolutionary methods): Microfermentation of nutrients Faster trait “selection” Augmentation of natural products with new traits “Grow at home” Systems

Establish high-intensity techniques in areas that are not high-intensity yet (including knowledge transfer approaches) Digitalisation -> Data-driven supply chain & process automation from Hatchery to consumer Precise demand forecasting and production Constant and reliable production Fully transparent and optimised supply chain Reduced Energy consumption and emissions (Production and Logistics) Decentralised or in-transit manufacturing/maturation Reduced water and feed consumption Reduced waste-loss Biology: Genetics assisted breeding Rapid pathogen detection and disease treatment Improved feed composition and technologies