AQUACULTURE OPERATIONS
Farming of aquatic species in a responsible manner requires a considerable amount of resources, financial as well as human. Specific for species that are farmed and grown with complementary compound feed, appropriate feed management practices at hatchery and grow-out level shall be implemented.
This requires: Legal compliance for feed formulations, including the protein levels based on the species to be fed; Monitoring of feed efficiency: feeding levels in accordance with the needs of the different aquatic species, minimizing feed waste and avoiding unnecessary pollution; Transparency of feed ingredients given from feed manufacturers to aqua farms: from the nutritional point of view, the feed needs to be species specific, address the correct stage of life, information on the fishmeal and fish oil composition, including species and country(ies) of origin, fish-in/fish-out ratio (whole fish from wild catch), records of eFCRs and efficient use of feed monitoring, analysis needed for food safety controls; Traceability systems needs to be in place to trace batches of feed to the batches of the farmed biomass.
COMPOUND FEED MILL OPERATION
Compound feed mills supplying farms aiming for responsible claims shall have in place:
Feed safety, HACCP-based risk assessment of feed ingredients; Traceability and responsible sourcing of feed ingredients through the selection and verification management of suppliers; Feed efficiency: importance of having specific feed for specific species, knowing the feeding behaviour of aquatic species and water quality parameters; Detailed management systems to evaluate, additionally to feed safety for all raw materials, the responsible sourcing of key raw materials from the marine and agricultural sources; Traceability, one step back and one step forward; Appropriate processing and handling of aqua feed; Quality and recall procedures.
CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS
Feedback gathered from the aqua feed manufacturing sector for the last 20 years have provided GLOBALG.A.P. as a standard setting organization, a varied palette of information, including challenges and solutions.
The main challenge remains on responsible sourcing for key marine and agricultural ingredients. Responsible sourcing covers legality and traceability. By achieving these aspects means the need to rely on verification tools that will trace the manufactured feedback to the compound feed production process.
Envisaged solutions are successful collaboration of all actors in the feed ingredients supply chain, that not only include the responsible sourcing of raw material but also the welfare of aquatic species targeted.