3 results

Seafood CRC: Australian Prawn Farmers Association (APFA) executive redirection challenge project

Project number: 2010-786
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $13,135.00
Principal Investigator: John Whiteoak
Organisation: University of the Sunshine Coast (USC)
Project start/end date: 17 Jan 2011 - 17 Mar 2011
Contact:
FRDC
TAGS
Workshop
Stakeholder
Innovation
Aquaculture
SPECIES
Black Tiger Prawn
Banana Prawns

Need

As with any Board there are conflicts and tensions on the APFA Board that arise from the mix of small and large farms represented,
level of experience, an annually rotating Board membership, differing R&D priorities and regulations challenges that continue to impact on future developments, as well as looking at the future business aspects of the APFA this workshop will also help the Board identify better ways to work as a more effective team.

Objectives

1. To identify and obtain agreement on the highest priority questions and opportunities facing the prawn farming industry and develop R & D and other strategies to address them.
2. To assist the APFA Board establish a unified vision and sense of purpose.

Seafood CRC: identification of the core leadership group and network structure of East Coast Trawl to develop, implement and evaluate strategic opportunities

Project number: 2010-777
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $227,766.12
Principal Investigator: Vikki Schaffer
Organisation: University of the Sunshine Coast (USC)
Project start/end date: 31 Jul 2011 - 29 Dec 2013
Contact:
FRDC
TAGS
Stakeholder
Market Opportunities
Fisheries Management
Efficiency
Community
SPECIES
King Prawns
Banana Prawns
Tiger Prawns

Need

East Coast Trawl Fishery (ECTF) involves fishers, agent and/or wholesaler, processors, various industry and government organisations and retailers. The lack of collaboration and production activities due to the lengthy coast and long distance between trawl areas along with a multi species fishery has resulted in the fishery becoming (i) a production focused industry and (ii) location oriented rather than whole of state or whole of fishery oriented industry. Consequently, intense competition exists within East Coast Trawl throughout the whole supply and value chain. This has been exacerbated by the decline in the value of Queensland prawn production over the past five years caused by record high fuel costs; labour shortages; competition from imported product and the strong Australian dollar. Furthermore, ACPF have identified a whole of industry approach as a research priority with an objective to identify a specific opportunity/strategy to pursue, not as individual fishers, but as a collective fishery. This project aims to develop a framework and benchmark case study to identify the leadership qualities and commitment within the ECTF. The implementation of a market opportunity/strategy will assess the identified ECTF leadership group and the network’s ability to increase long term profitability for the fishery.
The industry has identified and agreed to the need to develop collaboration within the fishery to leverage existing and future market opportunities. The understanding and building of industry social capital to support internal leadership through a network analysis is seen as fundamental to the development, coordination and implementation of a market approach for the industry.

Objectives

1. The identification of a core leadership group and an understanding of the current industry network structure will provide a platform for building the social capital and associated network to improve collaboration, information and resource dissemination and more informed decisions. Establishing an effective Leadership group that will champion the industry and effectively utilise the network to can improve the industry’s ability to act proactively rather than reactively, enhance the reputation of the industry and provide positive socio-economic outcomes for the ECTF.
2. Trialling and evaluating a market development strategy will demonstrate how effectively the fishery network and the Leadership group are at working together to achieve a positive outcome. This will further highlight the strengths and weaknesses for ultimately building a robust network for identifying future opportunities and effectively responding to industry challenges.

Final report

ISBN: 978-1-925982-20-6
Author: Vikki Schaffer
Final Report • 2013-12-30 • 5.70 MB
2010-777-DLD.pdf

Summary

The East Coast Trawl Fishery (ECTF) is spread over a large geographical area (from the Torres Strait to the Queensland/New South Wales border), and comprises a large number of small independent fishers. Importantly, it is one of Australia's largest fisheries and has an annual volume of 10,000 tonnes with a value of around $110million a year. This project aimed to investigate the current structure and process of the ECTF network. It was proposed that examining network structure and processes (in the context of social capital theory) was critical in identifying opportunities for both the ECTF network and individual fishers.

The investigation within the fishery revealed formal and informal leadership exists. Other types of leadership were identified including heroic and informal leaders. These forms of leadership aid in fishery connectivity and can be re-engaged to facilitate future fishery activities and decision making.

Several fishery market opportunities were evaluated and each brought fishery stakeholders together. This provided valuable insight into the fishery, stakeholder interaction, communication and the possible approaches for fishery stakeholders to address future collective actions.

Seafood CRC: genetic technologies to support a transformation to profitability and competitiveness in F. merguiensis and P. monodon

Project number: 2009-724
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $265,540.00
Principal Investigator: Wayne Knibb
Organisation: University of the Sunshine Coast (USC)
Project start/end date: 14 Dec 2009 - 30 Mar 2013
Contact:
FRDC
TAGS
Reproduction
Profitability
Market Opportunities
Innovation
Husbandry
SPECIES
Black Tiger Prawn
Banana Prawns

Need

There is a need to meet the CRC’s desired $240 million gain in seafood value through innovative technologies as scheduled in the CRC program 1. This proposal will contribute up to 47% of this CRC goal, as explained in the “background” section.

This application also meets the need to respond to the FRDC’s challenge 3 (response to demand, profitability) and FRDC priority “develop innovative processes for value-adding through
development” (genetic improvement will return greater profit per kg, or increase kgs for same infrastructure). Should the “Seafarm” transformational model be adopted by others, this will directly support the achievement of FRDC’s key performance indicators “at least two companies accessing new markets”, and “at least two entities utilizing improved stock from selective breeding”.

This application supports the stated and written need from the APFA, as a major stakeholder, to achieve a method to apply its R&D levy for the whole of the industry, for both P. monodon and F. merguiensis. The application makes the case that as a transformational model for profitability through innovative technologies this project delivers industry wide outcomes

Objectives

1. Understand if past and existing breeding practices led to significant inbreeding (more than 2% per generation) and, if substantial inbreeding has occurred and will continue to occur, develop options to track family pedigrees and so more effectively limit inbreeding
2. Estimate genetic heritabilities and correlations for commercially important traits. This information will be available for companies to develop efficient breeding programs
3. Determine if functional markers for a range of commercial traits are commercially feasible. If so, these makers will be available for companies to integrate into their breeding programs through a selection index

Final report

ISBN: 978-1-925983-34-0
Authors: Janet Howieson Guan Tay Steve Iaschi Karl Hansal and Wendy Newton
Final Report • 2013-12-04 • 13.01 MB
2009-773-DLD.pdf

Summary

Seafarm, at Cardwell, for most of the last 20 years, has been Australia’s largest prawn farm and the major producer of Banana Prawns. This producer wanted to understand and resolve the suspected inbreeding/ loss of diversity issues, and if necessary, redesign their breeding program to ensure it would be sustainable in the long term. This project attempted a “forensic” examination of a prawn selection program with the intention that the information would help make the program more sustainable and contribute foundation knowledge of what likely happens in such mass selection programs conducted by other companies on organisms with very high fecundities. It was also tested whether hepatopacreatic parvovirus (HPV) was under genetic control.

This project was able to provide genetic management information that promoted increased productivity at Seafarm, helping to revise their genetic breeding program to mitigate inbreeding and restore allelic diversity. The revised program has halted further inbreeding; increased the diversity in the crossed lined; lifted the growth of the outcrossed lines vs the inbred lines; and accelerated the rate of selection response.

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