Weekly Overview: Microalgae Studied for Fish Feed Potential

ANALYSIS - In this week"s news, researchers from Uni Research are now looking into the potential of microalgae as fish feed, writes Lucy Towers, TheFishSite Editor.

Microalgae, or phytoplankton, has a fast growth rate, around 50 times faster than land plants.

With such a high productivity rate, this resource therefore offers a huge potential for intensive production of animal feed in the future.

Researchers at Uni Research are now joining forces with 25 European partners to work on the EU-funded project MIRACLES over the next five years. The project aims to develop new concrete value chains for value creation using microalgae.

The research partners will determine how microalgae can best be produced n closed land-based facilities and used to develop new products. 

The US government shutdown has now ended, but Alaskan crab fishermen have been left out of pocket.

In her weekly column, Laine Welch stated that skippers who were forced to stay in harbour during the shutdown lost around $1000 each per day.

In order to promote more sustainable aquaculture production in the country, it is now compulsory for Vietnamese fish farmers to adopt the Vietnamese Good Agriculture Practice (VietGAP) standard. 

From 2015 onwards, pangasius farming and processing will be obligatory to apply VietGAP standard and afterwards, VietGAP certification will be applied to other aquatic species. 

Canadian fishermen look set to benefit from a new free trade agreement between the EU and Canada. Once implemented, the deal will eliminate around 98 per cent of EU tariff lines, meaning that many fishermen will see their bottom lines improve.

The agreement will also boost the UK"s economy by over ￡1.3 billion a year