Cargill entered the research and development of RAS feed and reached cooperation with well-known scientific research institutions in the United States

Cargill entered the research and development of RAS feed and reached cooperation with well-known scientific research institutions in the United States.

Author/Jason Huffman

Compilation / Hu Luyi

Recently, Cargill, one of the four major grain merchants, reached a cooperation agreement with the Virginia Freshwater Institute (FI) to jointly develop and improve the performance of RAS salmon feed.

FI is a research organization focused on land-based RAS salmon farming techniques with a 17,000-square-foot indoor nursery site and 10,000-square-foot facilities in Shepherdstown, Virginia, including an integrated water quality and fish pathology laboratory. FI indoor culture ponds consist of more than 50 individual units, including 6 RAS systems, each of which can accommodate thousands of juvenile salmon or up to 600 finished Atlantic salmon, with a culture density of up to 80 kg per cubic meter and a finished fish size of 4-5 kg.

Cargill, one of the world's top three salmon feed producers (the other two being Tego of the Netherlands and Bioma of Denmark, respectively), launched its first RAS feed in 2018, under the "Ewos Clear" brand (in 2015, norwegian feed company IWOS was acquired by Cargill), mainly for the North American market.

Photo: Virginia Freshwater Research Institute

Marc Turano, head of Cargill's Aquatic Nutrition Sector, told UCN: "FI is a world-renowned RAS research organization, and Cargill's collaboration with FI focuses on research and development, not commercialization. In the next five years, if global RAS salmon production is expected to exceed 50,000 tons, the demand for RAS feed is at least 50,000 tons based on a 1:1 feed conversion rate. ”

Turano pointed out that the main difference between RAS feed and ordinary salmon feed is the treatment of manure, seawater cage culture relies on natural purification of water flow, no need to consider manure collection, in the RAS system must make the fish excluded feces can be quickly condensed, so that the volume of solid particles becomes larger, so that it is easier to be separated and removed by the drum screen filter.

"RAS feed must not only consider fish nutrition, but also adapt to the confined water environment, and the formula must be optimized to achieve optimal biological performance while minimizing the spread of waste and maintaining the stability of the breeding system." Turano said.

According to UCN statistics, there are at least 199 RAS salmon farming projects worldwide, of which 112 projects have been built or put into production, and 87 projects are planning to attract investment. Most RAS producers use special RAS feeds, and a small number still use conventional feeds, which are engineered to clear the manure and debris, so the water consumption is also large.