A look back at the event "Aquaculture: Disease prevention and animal welfare"
In the framework of the "European Maritime Day in my Country", AQUIMER organized a day on the theme: "AQUACULTURE: Disease prevention and animal welfare". During this day, the morning was devoted to conferences and the afternoon to a workshop on a theme of the Horizon Europe call for projects.
The morning lectures provided an overview of the welfare issue in aquaculture. An introduction by Nikos Zampoukas of the DG RTD.C.4 and European representative of the SCARFISH initiative provided an opportunity to lay out the regulatory framework, research programs, projects, and strategies to better understand and control/monitor animal welfare during aquaculture production.
Presentations then took place with a first part on parameters to monitor or influence within production operations. The concepts of defining and monitoring welfare indicators were presented by Dr. Marie-Laure Bégout of IFREMER, then Violaine Colson of INRAE covered the topic of enrichment: the different types of enrichment, their importance and their benefits.
The next category of presentations was inclined toward to nutrition, with the participation of Andrew Richardson of INNOVAFEED who presented the potential of insect-derived ingredients. Timothy Bouley of BIOFEYN then presented nanoparticle technology allowing for increased product quality while improving the quality of life and well-being of fish.
The sensitive issue of end of life when discussing welfare was presented by Phil Brooke of Compassion In World Farming (CIWF) who highlighted the gaps in research to allow for welfare management in slaughter conditions.
When talking about welfare, the concepts of disease management and treatment are directly related. Alain Lebreton of VET'EAU provided a landscape of the evolution of practices and the path that remains to be taken in order to have safe, controlled practices that guarantee welfare. Dr. Pantelis Katharios of the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (HCMR) then spoke complementing this theme by addressing the issue of antibiotic resistance and presenting new strategies: autogenous vaccines and phages.
This morning ended with a label presentation: ASC by Janneke Aelen, who showed the importance of this notion of well-being in the certification process allowing the consumer to be able to orient themselves towards these products.
The 2nd part of the day consisted of a workshop, allowing participants to exchange in small groups around the theme HORIZON-CL6-2022-FARM2FORK-01-07 Biosecurity, hygiene, disease prevention and animal welfare in aquaculture. The groups exchanged on this same topic in parallel: common reflections emerged but also discussions specific to each group showing a range of proposals to answer this call.
