World Aquaculture December 2019

WWW.WA S.ORG • WORLD AQUACULTURE • DECEMBER 2019 13 Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Alexandria City, Egypt. The event launch ceremony happened in Cairo on 4 September and was graced at highest level by the state’s Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Land Reclamation. This also marked the signing of the conference hosting agreement betweenWAS and the Egyptian government, represented by the General Authority for Fish Resources Development (GAFRD). Other collaborating partners include the Central Laboratory for Aquaculture Research (CLAR), WorldFish, the Egyptian Aquaculture Society (EgAS) and some local universities. The Conference Steering Committee (which includes the Program Committee) and National Organizing Committee have been established and have begun all preparatory work. A draft conference program has now been developed. The theme of the conference is “Sustainable Aquaculture: Feeding Africa.” A number of support and sponsoring organizations have come on board. These include traditional WAS Premier Sponsors and of course Aller Aqua, our very own Chapter Founding Gold Sponsor, which has reaffirmed their commitment to be a AFRAQ2020 Gold Sponsor. I am overly enchanted by the level of excitement coming from our membership, partners and friends who are all highly expectant, looking forward to coming to Egypt for AFRAQ2020. The brochure announcing AFRAQ2020 has now been released in all four major African languages (English, French, Portuguese and Arabic) and is being publicized widely. Look for the AFRAQ2020 page on the WAS website soon. Lastly, allowme to make a special tribute to our Chapter Executive Officer (Secretariat) - Blessing Mapfumo, who has been working tirelessly, diligently and proactively on all Chapter business activities during the year, specifically in driving communication for AFRAQ2020, organizing the Chapter’s first annual board meeting in South Africa and for being an essential communication interface on the African Chapter’s day-to-day activities. I feel so blessed to have such a dedicated and results-oriented professional within my team. Let me also wishWAS management, membership and our readers at large Happy Holidays. Let’s catch up again on the other side – 2020! — Sherif Sadek, President Address, entitled “Aquaculture for Food Security and Sustainable Development.” At WA2020, there will be four days of conference and three days of the trade exhibition. There will be many aquaculture sessions and exhibitors at WA2020. The participants will be able to enjoy several pre- and post-conference farm tours. WAS-APC regularly makes several travel awards to students and professional women. The women’s award is a joint activity betweenWAS-APC and the Aquaculture without Frontiers (AwF) charity. This time we will make these awards in collaboration with WAS in support of attending the WA2020. Asia-Pacific Aquaculture 2021 will be held in from 9-11 June 2021 in Surabaya, Indonesia. We are busy signing agreements and deciding on details for this event in 2021, which we believe might become a one of the biggest WAS events in history! Past President Felix of WAS-APC and his team are now busy identifying and encouraging potential candidates to run for office in the upcomingWAS-APC Board election. We will be looking for a President-elect, a Treasurer and two Directors. The new Board will meet in Singapore duringWA2020. We look forward to meeting you in June 2020 and invite everyone to join us at WA2020 in Singapore! — Rohana Subasinghe, President Afr ica Chap t er , continued from page 10 As i an Paci f ic Chap t er , continued from page 10 salmon meal, soya protein concentrate, krill meal, squid meal, shrimp head meal, sardine hydrolysate, (whole) shrimp meal and squid liver meal. When direct (pairwise) choice comparisons were made to determine feeding preference, shrimp head meal and krill meal were the most preferred diets while sardine hydrolysate was the least preferred chemoattractant. These feeding preferences translated into significantly greater final body weight and lowest FCR (1.31 ± 0.05) in the case of krill meal, which outperformed all other attractants. Salmon meal inclu- sion also resulted in significantly higher growth rates than all other diets, while survival was similar across all treatments. Overall results show that krill meal inclusion at a rate of only 3 percent outperforms Rese arch Highl ight, continued from page 12 all other tested chemoattractants for all diet key performance in- dicators from initial feeding to growth performance and overall yield. This level of inclusion markedly improves the performance of high-replacement diets, making sustainable diet options attractive to shrimp producers worldwide. The authors discuss the possible effect of increased LC-PUFA content in the most effective diets contain- ing krill meal and salmon meal, with this characteristic and feeding stimulation contributing to positive growth and yield results. This paper can be found in the Journal of the World Aquaculture Society 50(6):1048-1063 available at onlinelibrary. wiley.com/journal/10.1111/jwas.12648 or visit us under Publications at www.was.org. —Matthew Slater, Executive Editor, JWAS Now that our structures are in place, it is time to cement our position as a professional society that meaningfully contributes to sustainable aquaculture development in Africa. Our recent meeting invigorated board members to hit the ground running.