The management and disposal of solid wastes from seafood processing, food manufacturing and allied industries is a major economic and environmental issue for Australian industry.   Large quantities of wet waste of this nature are routinely disposed of to landfill at considerable cost to industry.  Some companies have developed markets or alternative uses for their wastes (such as petfood, bait, pig food or fertilisers) to avoid or offset the costs of disposal, but generally the wastes are supplied free of charge to secondary users and there is limited opportunity for downstream value-adding.

The utilisation of seafood, aquatic and other food processing wastes as a replacement for imported fishmeal in aquafeed production is the main focus of this project.   The availability of locally-produced formulated feeds using these otherwise wasted resources would provide a firm base to underpin current and future aquaculture production in Victoria and indeed Australia.

The study emphasised the need for a multi-pronged approach to determine the suitability of ingredients for incorporation into fish diets.  In all cases, the findings have to be confirmed through growth trials, prior to possible commercialisation.

The bulk of the research that has been carried out for the South East Fishery (SEF) over the last decade has focussed on the collection of biological data, assessment of the status of fish stocks, research into the economics of the fishery, and the impact of fishing on the environment.  In recent years, the need for a broader research and development (R&D) coverage to address whole of supply chain needs of the SEF has been recognised by Industry, AFMA, the Management Advisory Committees (MACs) and the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation. The SEF Industry Development Subprogram was established to help develop a whole of supply chain R&D strategy for the SEF and initiate new R&D projects to implement the strategy through increasing the value of SEF products by value-adding to fish products, adopting new technologies and improving utilisation of catches.  To enable this, a Steering Committee of Industry representatives with expertise in the SEF whole of supply chain was formed to help foster and prioritise R&D into industry development areas.  This report summarises the progress of the Subprogram over the first 18 months of operation to June 2001.

Two Subprogram meetings have been held.  In the first, the role of the FRDC Subprogram and Steering Committee was outlined and the broad scope of the R&D strategy was developed.  At the second meeting a range of pre-proposals were considered and we worked towards development of other projects that would fall within the scope of our priority R&D.  We initially focused on two priority R&D areas: skills/training and fish waste utilisation. It was recognised that there was a need for skill development and training across the fishery’s supply chain, especially in areas such as product handling, food safety and OH&S issues. We are currently working with the relevant national and state seafood training bodies to plan and implement a training package relevant to the SEF.  The significant level of fish wastes that are discarded by the industry from both the catching and processing sectors was another priority area.  It was agreed to promote and support R&D that aimed to improve the utilisation of non-quota bycatch species by investigating suitable and cost-effective techniques to process the wide variety of discarded fish waste into products such as aquaculture feeds, silage, fish mince, fishmeal.  Another waste minimisation option that is being explored is the use of value adding, improved promotion and targeted marketing campaigns to increase retention of certain low-value species that are usually discarded.  Workshops to discuss training and waste utilisation R&D are planned for October 2001 with the aim of submitting a suite of related projects for funding by FRDC and other agencies.

The Subprogram’s first project entitled “The E-boat - implementation of an on-board electronic data collection and transmission system” began in May 2001.  Jointly funded by AFFA and FRDC, the project is progressing well following an extensive phase of software development and modification to make it user-friendlier to the fishers.  A working presentation of the software has been given at a number of venues and has received positive feedback from the industry groups. Work is progressing to enable the direct transfer of logbook data from fishers to AFMA to meet their SEF1 requirements.  Trial data transfers have proceeded well and real data transfer is expected to take place early 2002.  The potential for data from the E-boat software to directly feed into E-commerce sites, such as SFM-live, is being investigated. 

Although slow to start, the Subprogram has achieved many of its initial objectives.  The process of getting people together from across the whole of supply chain and networking has been valuable and is proving fruitful with respect to communication, advice and feedback from all sectors of the Industry.  It is expected that within the next year or two, the full benefits of the development of the SEF Industry Development Subprogram should be realised with the initiation of a number of R&D projects under the umbrella of the Subprogram.  The FRDC has supported a proposal to continue the Subprogram for a further two years from July 2001 to June 2003.  After this time, the Steering Committee believes there should be a review of the progress of the Subprogram and the value of its future operation.

Keywords: South East Fishery, industry development, value-adding, training, waste utilisation. 

Federal and state legislation is increasingly demanding more stringent environmental controls on aquaculture activities and place the onus of proof for demonstrating environmental performance on the industry.  In addition, regulation for and approval of aquaculture activities is increasingly directed through state EPAs.  There is thus a regulatory imperative to defining ESD sustainability indicators for the aquaculture industry.

Public perception of the industry as environmentally unsustainable, although not always substantiated by scientific fact, can have a detrimental affect on aquaculture development through objections to individual aquaculture planning applications. 

To address these two issues, there is a clear need to identify the issues related to various aquaculture sectors and develop protocols and frameworks through which organisations can demonstrate their compliance with environmental objectives.  What is required is a national framework and standards for assessing the environmental performance of aquaculture.  Additionally, industry needs to be equipped with practical tools and solutions for dealing with these issues.

The then Standing Committee on Fisheries and Aquaculture (SCFA), now the Australian Fisheries Managers Forum, adopted an ESD framework for fisheries in 1998 and a FRDC/SCFA-funded project has undertaken a number of case studies using this framework.  To date the focus of these case studies has predominantly been on wild fisheries.  This approach needs to be expanded to a broader range of stakeholders involved in aquaculture and fine-tuned to ensure it is appropriate for all aquaculture systems and sectors.  The workshop program involved leading representatives from the aquaculture industry, indigenous communities, non-government organisations, science and government. The workshop was attended by 106 delegates. 

The presentations covered a range of perspectives from many leading industry, government and non-government organisations. It brought to the front a number of key issues and challenges facing the implementation of ESD across the aquaculture industry and highlighted a range of pathways to achieve ESD at a business, regional or National level.

The break-out group sessions identified key issues facing each of seven aquaculture industry sectors and provided feedback on strategies to address those issues along with suggested performance indicators. Many of these issues were consistent across sectors and provided a firm basis for identifying and prioritisation key issues at the national level. 
The group discussion focussed on the drivers / needs to establish a framework for implementing ESD at the National level. Through this discussion there was widespread support to review the existing ESD Framework for the wild capture sector, in order to develop an equivalent framework for aquaculture. A process for reviewing the ESD framework was subsequently developed within the FRDC ESD subprogram.