Aquaculture and Fisheries education, research and Extension in changing context

Aquaculture as well as fisheries has attracted a lot of public attention due to remarkable role it has played in food and nutrition security, and overall livelihood of millions of people. At the same time, private sector is increasing investment in aquaculture because of its profit potential and technological advancement. While there is a need to double the annual aquaculture production by 2050, the industry is suffering by frequent occurrence of diseases with high mortalities (e.g. shrimp) often causing its collapses. Several other problems have emerged recently e.g. genetic deterioration in carps, decline in fishmeal supply and impact on environment. Aquaculture is often blamed for environmental damages. Changing climate and associated disasters are even threatening the industry. However, there is hope due to advancement in technologies such as biotechnology, genetic improvement, probiotics, and vaccines, which could make the industry sustainable and even take it to a higher level.

In order to address the issues, and leap forward education, research, and extension services need to be well functioning. Success may depend on how well they cooperate among themselves in sharing and transferring knowledge, research outcomes, and experiences. In traditional model, education was designed to provide knowledge to the graduates most of whom were expected to join research and extension institutions to provide services to the farmers or the end users.  

Research institutions are supposed to dedicate to carry out innovative research based on the need and then provide the outcomes to the extension agents. However, in reality, instead of cooperating these organizations are competing each other and their activities are overlapping. On the other hand, ultimate-users i.e. farmers do not appear in the traditional model. They should be placed in the middle, and all of these institutions should try to reach them so that they are supported adequately (Fig. 1). It means education and curricula need to be farmer-oriented. Situation has changed and more graduates need to become farmers who should be able to improve farming. This would also help solve the problem of unemployment; which is becoming increasingly serious among new graduates. Similarly, research organizations need more practical field-oriented than lab-based high-tech type research. But long-term strategic research, and commercialization of technologies is lacking in Asia. Extension organizations often overlook research and pass research outcomes to farmers without testing in scientific way. They need to be regularly updated and develop packages of ready-to-use technologies.

In addition, private sector and non-government organizations (NGOs) are also duplicating these roles. In some cases doing effectively, but often misleading public with biased statements and some times with exaggerations. Careful coordination of all stakeholders is required to have a sound and sustainable sector to double its production by 2050.