Although a $2.7 billion industry the Australian seafood industry has traditionally lagged behind other primary producers in its ability to centrally organise, market and represent itself to consumers, regulators and the general public.
The formation of Seafood Industry Australia is a big step in correcting this anomaly.

There remains a strong need for seafood producers(fishers and Farmers) to understand the current seafood market,supply chain and advances in product development and marketing.

A further marketing symposium will provide industry with an update on the current trends and approaches, it would further benefit industry by:

1. Reinforcing with industry how effective marketing works.
2. Inspire participants with practical examples of effective marketing they coud apply at a sector, category or company level.
3. Showcase examples of effective marketing for domestic demand, export, trade and industry goodwill.
4. Identify and explain new marketing channels and the opportunities they present.
5. Demonstrate how to incorporate a systematic approach to developing a brand.
6. Identify meaningful and distinct consumer markets throgh market segmentation

It is clear the priority audience for the symposium are fishers and farmers looking to improve their profitability.

A White Spot Disease R&D Needs Workshop held in Brisbane on Wednesday 18 October 2017 providing a forum to unpack research and other issues amongst industry with respect to the detection of WSSV. The government and industry response at the meeting demonstrated gaps in the wild harvest sector’s knowledge of biosecurity concepts.

There is a need to greatly increase industry capacity to respond to biosecurity threats. This project proposal is a people development project aimed at extending the work of the BILO and significantly boost industry preparedness.

The purpose of this project application is to address the information and education gaps identified amongst the wild catch commercial fishing sector. In consultation with industry stakeholders and the QSIA, Millstream Productions have been approached to developed a series of video clip production plans (attached to this application).

The Biosecurity Act 2014 (Qld) section 23 sub-sections states that industry businesses have an obligation (a general biosecurity obligation) to take all reasonable and practical measures to prevent or minimise the biosecurity risk. This project will help industry to do this by offering an information platform that is tailored to industry needs and will provide video and written material to educate industry regarding its biosecurity obligations.

This project has broad based support from industry, biosecurity experts and government (letters of support attached).

1) Industry – Marshall Betzel, President, Queensland Seafood Marketers Association (QSMA).
2) Biosecurity experts – Dr Matt Landos and Dr Ben Diggles.
3) Government – Dr Stephen Wesche, Planning and Policy Manager, White Spot Disease Program, Biosecurity Queensland, Department of Agriculture and Fisheries.

The project compliments the work developed by the BILO. The linking of paper and video material will provide industry with multiple platforms to engage on the critical issue of biosecurity.

To meet the projected seafood demand by 2030 Australian aquaculture needs to increase its rate of growth in both production and competitiveness (FRDC 2016). Extensive R&D efforts have been invested in more than 90 aquaculture species over the last five decades in Australia. Nonetheless, fewer than 10% of these species have reach recognized production in either tonnage or value. Presently, only Atlantic salmon, tiger prawn, barramundi and oysters are considered as major aquaculture species in Australia. This highlights the need to identify possible gaps in our research and extension activities, and the barriers to successful commercialization of new aquaculture species.

Importantly, research interest alone is unlikely to be sufficient to drive aquaculture production of targeted species. The observed limited production or lack of investment in new species may indicate differences in new species preferences among the relevant stakeholders, i.e. scientists, consumers, traders, investors, producers, policy makers and regulators. These differing perspectives should therefore be analysed to provide a better understanding of the conditions required for successful development of a new aquaculture species.

The project proposed here - “Auditing research effort on aquaculture species and industry adoption for production growth” - is consistent with national priorities and strategies of both FRDC and CSIRO. Under the FRDC’s Research, Development and Extension (RD&E) Plan 2015-20, one of three national priorities is to develop new or emerging aquaculture growth opportunities with the aim of delivering RD&E to help promote the establishment of one or two species at commercial scale production. To address this priority the FRDC has established the New and Emerging Aquaculture Opportunities (NEAO) subprogram. Similarly, CSIRO Aquaculture has continuously emphasized the importance of delivering innovative impacts that transform aquaculture production in more-sustainable ways. This implies either removing identified barriers for current aquaculture species or investing in targeted strategic R&D on carefully-selected new species in collaboration with industrial partners.