SUSAQUA-BRAZIL - Marine aquaculture as a sustainable green industry in Brazil

Brazil has a long coastline with good opportunities for developing large-scale sustainable marine aquaculture. During the last decades, the country has invested in freshwater aquaculture and small-scale production of algae along the coast. However, the potential for marine aquaculture in Brazil is large. The project "SUSAQUA-Brazil" has studied opportunities and challenges to develop a green and sustainable marine farming industry in Brazil. This was done by working together with strong expert groups in Brazil. Several workshops and study tours was conducted in Brazil and Norway, for researchers and industrial actors. Brazilian researchers and industry actors did visit Norwegian fish farms, equipment suppliers and a processing plant. There has also been contact and visits between people from hatcheries in Brazil, and Norwegian industry (C-Feed). C-Feed is a company producing copepod eggs as a startfeed for marine fish larvae. Import of this product to Brazil have been challenging, and although all permits have been in place, shipments have stopped in customs. Project participants, together with the C-Feed and Brazilian fish farming industry, have worked with Brazilian and Norwegian authorities to make such imports easier. The cultivation of kelp is a new industry both in Norway and in Brazil. Research projects and industry actors in Norway have been working with species such as Saccarina lattissima, Alaria esculenta and Palmaria sp., while in Brazil our partners work with Kappaphycus sp. The exchange of experiences both within cultivation technology, environmental effects, IMTA (integrated multi-trophic aquaculture) and processing has been topics addressed in WP1. Aquaculture production of marine fish species and other organisms have several bottlenecks, and one of the most important challenges is the first-feeding period. In this project the original plan was to cultivate Octopus larvae with copepods as feed. Several trails to get Octopus-eggs failed, and the focus changed into Cobia instead, but also other marine fish species have been investigated. Cobia is a new species in aquaculture in Brazil, and experience in first-feeding of marine species was shared between the project participants in WP 2. In the project period 6 workshops has been conducted, 3 in Brazil and 3 in Norway. The titles of the workshops are listed below: 1. "SusAquaBrazil-startup workshop", Fortaleza, Brazil, spring 2015 2. "Aquaculture in Brazil", Trondheim, Norway, autumn 2015 3. "Seaweed cultivation" Trondheim, Norway autumn 2015 4. "Strategies for large scale cultivation of seaweed", Florianapolis, Brazil, autumn 2016 5. "New species in Aquaculture", Trondheim, Norway, autumn 2017 6. "SusAquaBrazil-workshop", Sao Paulo, Brazil, autumn 2017 The interest for the workshop "Aquaculture in Brazil" was great, and there were more than 50 participants. On the speaking list attended both the Brazilian Fisheries Minister and representatives from the Norwegian Foreign Ministry. The project has delivered popular science articles in both Norwegian, Brazilian and international journals: (1) Rodrigo Carvalho, Roger Richardsen, Pål Myhre, Alberto Nunes, Eric Routledge, Erica Vidal, Gunvor Øie, João Felipe Matias, Kjell Inge Reitan, Leila Hayashi: A Aquicultura na Noruega e no Brasil e a Cooperacão para o Desenvolvimento Sustentavel da Altavida no Brasil. ABCC, Novembro de 2015 pp 70 -74. (Associa?ao Brasileira de Criadores de Camarão). (2) Roger Richardsen. "Brasil-en kommende supermakt innen akvakultur" Norsk fiskeoppdrett nr.2, p.54-57. (3) Pål Myhre, Alberto J.P. Nunes, Felipe M. Suplicy, Erica A.G. Vidal, Artur N. Rombenso, Leila Hayashi, Fernando T. Kanemoto and João F. N. Matias "World Food Gigant-Brazil Aiming to be one of the top Five Aquaculture Producers in 2020" World aquaculture. World Aquaculture, sept. 2017 p. 31-37. In addition, two manuscripts for publication in scientific journals are in prep. Working titles for the manuscripts are: (1) Ole Jacob Broch et al.: Modelling IMTA in Brazil. (2) Kari Attramadal et al. Recirculation of water and nutrients is beneficial in copepod production: COPEPONICS The project has created good contacts between the Norwegian and Brazilian researchers and commercial actors, and in august 2017 a Brazilian student applied to NTNU for a visiting stay and to continue with MSc study. This stay was a result of the SusAquaBrazil project. The student works with tasks related to Norwegian and Brazilian aquaculture. The results from the project have also been presented at several international conferences like FENACAM and "Norway-Brazil Aquaculture Summit 2017". In addition, several of the partners have worked together on an EU application to continue the work from the SusAquaBrazil project. This application called SusaquaAtlantic was delivered to EU in February 2018: «BG-08-2018-2019: All Atlantic Ocean Research Alliance Flagship - [C] 2018-2019- New value chains for aquaculture production».

SUSAQUA-BRAZIL will assess the possibilities and challenges for developing a green and sustainable marine aquaculture industry in Brazil, by indicating strong expertise groups in Brazil. An important success factor is to develop good cooperation between B razilian expertise groups and the Norwegian partners of this project in order to learn from increased knowledge on both sides. Brazil has a 7 500 km long coastline with a possibility to develop large sustainable marine biomass industry. There are already some small scales productions of algae along the Brazilian coast, and also a freshwater aquaculture, with different players involved in this production. Brazil with its favourable climatic conditions, long coastline and the immense land availability has a potential to develop large scale cultivation of marine macroalgae and several marine fish species. Algae farms along the coast can absorb CO2 in the same manner as the rainforest in Amazonas. A green industry of macroalgae and cultivation of new marine aquaculture species, as octopus and marine fish, will represent a new industry sector that will profit by cooperation with research groups in Norway with activity in this field. Natural and social scientists from Norway and Brazil will work concurrently on the challenges of creating a sustainable industry located in coastal areas, which can serve as an industrial alternative to the deforestation of Amazonas. This project will focus on the potential of an emerging marine aquaculture industry especially i n the coastal areas of the country, and thereby developing a climatic balanced activity. We will map the knowledge base and systems already existing in the topic area, and create a preliminary interdisciplinary management plan.