16 MARCH 2014 • WORLD AQUACULTURE • WWW.WAS.ORG The plenary address was provided by David Hughes, an Emeritus Professor of Food Marketing from Imperial College in London. He began by pointing out that global fish production has now overtaken global beef production and is gaining on chicken and pork. The big battle in the future global food market will be between the white meats (fish and chicken). He pointed out that older people around the world tend to move to healthier meats and that this is an opportunity for aquaculture because consumers of all ages perceive fish to be healthier than other meats. The biggest threats to aquaculture and the seafood industry from a marketing perspective are the perceived industrialization of production, the potential for a food safety incident, supply chain integrity issues that undermine trust and commoditization of products. Look for a feature article from Professor Hughes in a future issue of World Aquaculture. I think it’s fair to say that APA13 was an “EMS conference.” The specter of this troublesome shrimp disease (now called Acute Hepatopancreatic Necrosis Disease) hung over the event, having caused huge losses in most of the major shrimp-producing countries in the region in recent years. There were multiple, well-attended sessions during the conference that directly or peripherally addressed aspects of this and other shrimp diseases. Some important technical advances were reported in this area during the conference. Prior to the conference there was a two-day workshop on “Biofloc Technology and Shrimp Diseases” that addressed explicitly the link between shrimp health and aspects of biofloc technology that prevent or minimize the effects of shrimp disease. This workshop was attended by over 200 registrants and was organized by WAS, the Aquacultural Engineering Society and City International University, Ho Chi Minh City. Most workshop presentations and a summary can be found on the webpage of the Biofloc Technology Working Group (www.aesweb.org). It seems likely that the topic of shrimp diseases, especially AHPND/EMS, will be featured at WAS conferences in Asia and Latin America for the foreseeable future. In addition to sessions one would expect at an aquaculture conference in Asia, there were interesting sessions on relatively uncommon topics, such as lipids and functional ingredients, utilization of amino acids, novel feeds and species-focused sessions on tuna, cobia and yellowtail, pangasius, tilapia, freshwater prawns, lobster and seahorses. The Fifth International Oyster Symposium (see text box) was held over two days of the conference. The conference had three full days of as many as many as nine concurrent sessions. Unfortunately expansion of the program and inherent restrictions associated with configuration of the venue required that two session “rooms” were placed in corners of the trade show area. Sound bleed from the trade show made it difficult to hear speakers in those rooms. Ho Chi Minh City was a fascinating place to hold a conference. The conference facilities were quite good but were located a 20-min taxi ride from the heart of downtown, known as District 1. Shuttle buses ran conference participants to and from the venue, although the commute seemed to deter participation in the sparsely attended President’s Reception, which featured ample and diverse food offerings and excellent entertainment by traditional Vietnamese musicians playing the dan bau, a plucked onestring instrument. The downtown of the former Saigon is very lively, featuring beautiful French colonial architecture and many landmarks frequented by tourists, travelers and conference participants, including the iconic Ben Thanh market. The swirl and chaos of motorbike traffic in the city is exciting but nerve-wracking. During the conference, the city was going mad for the extensive and over-the-top Christmas decorations at the big department stores downtown, which drew big crowds. There were a pair of one-day post-conference tours, both of which consisted of a long bus ride through slow-moving traffic followed by a boat ride to a single facility. I visited a marine finfish net-pen area near Vung Tau that was an estuarine arm with many cage farms on either side of the main channel. The farm we visited grew cobia (200 mt/yr) and silver pomfret (100 mt/yr) in about 100 cages, each 6 × 14 × 3.5 m. Seed was imported from China and Indonesia; feed was a mash prepared on-site. Oyster racks were interspersed among cage farms. The Asian Pacific Chapter has had a burst of activity and initiatives and this conference was ample testimony to how those efforts are coming to fruition. WAS or the APC has now had conferences in many of the major cities in the region. This bodes well for future growth of this chapter in an area with most of the world’s aquaculture. — John A. Hargreaves TOP. Cage farms near Vung Tau. MIDDLE. Cage farm for cobia and silver pomfret near Vung Tau. BOTTOM. A wet mash is made on-site.
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