Indonesian aquaculture is bountiful. Indonesia is the world’s second-largest producer of aquaculture products with a total annual production of 14.6 million tonnes. Indonesia embraces this bounty; they view aquaculture as a positive job or activity, as exciting and forward thinking, and necessary in order to access food security. Indonesia is also the home to over 11,000 fisheries extension officers. In comparison, the U.S. is the 20th-largest aquaculture producer in the world, with only 0.48 million tonnes. Additionally, U.S. residents only consume 11.0 pounds per person each year; this rate is less than the recommended intake of 26.0 pounds per year. U.S.’s states also typically have only 0.5-1 extension agents that focus on aquaculture for the entire state. This lack of aquaculture literacy in the U.S. often creates a lack of social license for the expansion of U.S. aquaculture. However, the U.S. is heavily regulated which promotes safe and sustainable farming practices. Therefore, partnerships in Indonesia could provide optimal case studies of high production aquaculture systems and an aquaculture-literate society accepting of farming in the water; and, in return, we in the U.S. could provide examples and training of sustainable practices and seafood consumer safety programs, thus bringing together a very unique partnership - especially for those in Extension and/or Sea Grant programs.
In June 2024, Dr. Lauren Jescovitch and Mr. Elliot Nelson traveled to Java, Indonesia to continue to develop collaborations and key relationships in the aquaculture community. During their travels, they had discussions with the Ministry of Marine Affairs, visited three college campuses and one fishery high school, delivered four workshops to students, lecturers, and extension officers, interviewed five high school students, and presented aquaculture educational presentations at the World Aquaculture Society’s Asian Pacific Chapter’s annual meeting. They gathered 360- virtual reality footage to create farm tours that will be shared as an experiential-based program to improve U.S. aquaculture literacy as well as obtained verbal agreement of at least one high school from Indonesia to join the Aquaculture Challenge program. Although many outcomes were produced during these travels, the greatest impact of all was the development of a new collaborative idea to focus on implementation of backwards design with the logic model framework for fisheries and aquaculture extension agents. Join us as we showcase our travels to Indonesia, and the teachings we learned in both the similarities and differences in U.S. and Indonesia aquaculture.