THE INTERNATIONAL AQUACULTURE FEED FORMULATION DATABASE (IAFFD): A STANDARDIZED, PUBLICLY AVAILABLE AQUACULTURE FEED FORMULATION DATABASE

The United States Soybean Export Council (USSEC) has worked for over 30 years with the aquaculture industry worldwide to promote a profitable, responsible, feed-based aquaculture industry while specifically promoting the use of United States soy products in aquaculture feeds.  One of the primary targets for USSEC is the aquaculture feedmill industry, as this is where soy enters aquaculture production value chain.  USSEC identified a critical weakness in the aquaculture industry that generally does not exist in the terrestrial livestock industry, the availability of a standardized feed formulation database.  While a database is only a tool - an experienced formulator is needed to create realistic formulations - it is an important tool that was missing from the aquaculture industry.

Starting in late 2014 USSEC, in cooperation with other organizations, created the first known standardized aquaculture feed formulation database, initially named the Asian Aquaculture Feed Formulation Database (or AAFFD, due to an initial focus on the Asian aquaculture market).  The feed ingredient sub-database contained information on over 200 feed ingredients and the species nutritional specification sub-database had information on 24 species at different age groups (typically six for fish and four for crustaceans).  Since that time additional species and ingredients have been added, and the Stage III version expected in June 2017 should have at least 28 species and well over 400 ingredients, including non-Asian species, which is why it is now named the International Aquaculture Feed Formulation Database, or IAFFD.

This database is being made available to the public, at no cost, to help improve aquaculture feed formulation approaches.  It is envisioned that this database could be used as an actual database, or could be used as a metric for comparison to an existing private database. It has also been used to create training workshops for aquaculture formulators, something that was difficult to do on a group basis without a common database to work from.  

The database is available for download from the internet (www.iaffd.com) and has already been imported successfully into several commercial feed formulation programs.  This database concept is expected to be continually supported with modifications, additions, and improvements in the coming years.