Location: Brazil

Species: Aratu (Goniopsis cruentata)

International Aquaculture Development Plan Overview

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is a global specialist financial organization within the UN dedicated to funding projects that tackle poverty and food security problems around the world. Through strategic partnerships, the organization seeks to reduce poverty and increase food security through funding and investment in agriculture and rural development. Its partners include Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member states, civil society organizations, UN agencies, bilateral and multilateral development agencies, international agricultural research centers, NGOs and foundations, policy research institutes and universities, regional organizations, and the private sector.IFAD also seeks to mitigate the effects of climate change on agricultural societies and promote sustainable farming systems in aquaculture.

Through this, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is implementing a project called "Strengthening Livelihood Recovery of COVID 19 Affected Rural Communities". The project aims to ensure food and nutrition security for the most affected vulnerable households and a shift towards nutrition-sensitive, climate-resilient agriculture and food safety.

To achieve this, you have been hired as an international aquaculture extension agent to build new aquaculture ventures in a country that could capitalize on their resources or faces food security challenges. The job description below will incorporate parts of the project and relate back to specific assignments that directly prepare you for the course project.

"In coordination with the project team, participate in the identification of beneficiary households, particularly those interested in crustacean, invertebrate, and seaweed propagation. Beneficiary households would be those households in the community that would be participating in the project and recipients of training and funding."

Course Project Outline

Part 1: Project Proposal Background and Country Highlights

• Choose the country you will be proposing for the project and the community in which you will set up beneficiary households. Ideally, this will be a place that has access to either native species of aquaculture of interest related to the course work (e.g. crustacean or algae) or the natural resources to house a species of interest.
• For this section of the project, we will set the stage for the overall international development program and implementation background and your role as an aquaculture extension agent. The term "extension agent" comes from the U.S.-based land grant system of community education. An extension agent is generally a person who is a field expert on developing farming systems.
• With this part, we will be meeting the course outcome 1 and you will have practiced this assignment in Week 2 Assignment: Country Economic Profile. Go back to that assignment and elaborate on certain sections and incorporate feedback. In this section you will describe the following items:
  • Describe the site location and natural resources that lend it to being an ideal location for an aquaculture system. Include a map.
  • Describe the infrastructure or lack thereof.
  • Describe the aquaculture species currently in production if any (what is currently happening in terms of aquaculture in the country). If there is no aquaculture describe the fisheries production or seafood consumption or aquatic commodities.
  • In summary, describe what makes this community a good place for this program in light of the community's socioeconomic status, overall infrastructure, and household labor forces.
  • Describe the idea behind the proposed species to increase food security for the chosen community.

Part 2: Biological Requirements of Selected Species

• Select the aquaculture species of interest from an approved species group (one in which we covered in this course). Appropriate species are ones which are the main subject area of this course. Describe the production cycle and appropriate equipment needed. Think of this as a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) style guide for setting up this type of species culture. This is basically a how-to guide for employees in many cases and for this project would be a how-to reference sheet for beneficiary households.
• Refer to the following publication on how to write an aquaculture SOP
• Links to an external site..

In this section, you will describe the equipment and general setup required for your chosen species. In addition, you will be creating an SOP for the communities to follow for basic husbandry and care. You will include the general species life cycle and will plan for all stages of their culture. This section of the project will meet course outcomes 2 and 3. You will have practiced this section in Week 1 Assignment: Site Selection in Aquaculture Systems and Week 3 Assignment: Growing Brine Shrimp and Writing an SOP. In this section you will describe the following items:

• Describe the planned setup. In this section, you will include things like tank size, location of the site, water source, natural resources in the area, and the type of aquaculture system utilized. Make sure at this point you are proposing a system that will work for the species you selected. Refer to week 1 on the related assignment requirements for farming systems by species group.
• SOP 1: For this section, you will write an SOP for animal care and husbandry. Include guidelines for animal care which includes things like how to prepare the diet, how to spawn, how to clean tanks, how to take water quality, how to monitor growth. Each of these can include an introductory written paragraph and then a list of steps or guidelines. For extensive systems the water quality measurements might consist of just taking daily dissolved oxygen and salinity readings. For more intensive recirculating systems this might include other water quality parameters like ammonia, nitrate, pH, dissolved oxygen. You can introduce each section with a short description and then make the standard list for care. Make sure the lists of steps you are describing are relevant to the system and the biology of the organism. You will practice this in Week 4 Discussion I: Aquaculture Systems of Course Project Species.

You can separate this SOP in to the following sections:

• Feeding of organism (what and how to prepare)
• Monitoring growth in organism/inventory
• Reproduction or spawning conditioning
• Care of organism (dependent on system)- daily monitoring
• Care of system (cleaning)
• Harvest of organism- how long to reach market size, what type of harvest?

Part 3: Biosecurity Plan

Biosecurity is the practice of prevention of diseases or pathogens spread at a facility. Usually these are a set of practices that reduces the probability of pathogen induction (Lotz 1997). In this exercise you want to identify the hazards and risks to a facility. Good biosecurity is a preventative measure that provides barriers for pathogen entry. Usually these procedures include controlling the movement of the organism through the different parts of the farm, movement of people (visitors and staff), and movement and disinfection of objects within the facility. This section will address course outcome 5 which examines differences in global disease distribution and comparative systems (open vs. closed). For this section you will be creating a biosecurity plan and this relates to the information you presented in a discussion board post in week 5 where you described a disease or nutritional deficiency that affects the crustaceans or algaes. In addition this relates to Week 5 Assignment: Biosecurity Scenarios.

• Describe what pathogens might be of concern for your organism and how they manifest in disease. If your chosen species has no known pathogens do research on related organisms and provide those.
• Describe measures of prevention that will be taken at the facility organized into three different categories below. Answer the suggested questions in paragraph form.
• Animal management
  • What kind of quarantine will be in place
  • What kind of sampling will be done to assess organism health?
  • What kind of observations will be conducted for general health?
• People management (training)
  • Describe the protocols you will have staff follow to prevent the spread of disease and training you will provide staff.
  • Describe the specific measures that will be in place to sanitize equipment.
• Pathogen management
  • Describe the protocols that will be in place for pathogen management. Identify reservoirs and facility controls for microorganisms.

Part 4: Marketing Plan

One of the pieces of the job description for the international aquaculture extension agent is to facilitate consultations with beneficiary households interested in aquaculture production and plan market strategies also accounting for barriers for market access for the chosen country and species. This part of the project meets course outcome 4 and will be practiced in the marketing plan in Week 2 Assignment II (Gallery): Creating a Marketing Plan.

• Create a basic marketing plan by identifying the harvest method, market, and logistics of bringing the chosen species to market. This includes where your market areas will be nationally and internationally, think target demographic, and consumer nation profile. Be sure to address the following:
  • Wholesale
  • Retail
  • Value Added
  • How the product will be marketed based on the harvest method from packaging to promotion. Describe your final product and how you will market it.
  • Describe the planned marketing strategies as being either
  • Include economic data of equivalent products on the market.
  • What is your target market and how will you get your product to market? Will the product be exported internationally, sold domestically or both?
• Identify barriers to production and market based on your chosen country and your research.
  • For example, could be something as simple as an inability to get clean ice or lack of good roads to bring the product to the market. Provide evidence of how you will address/ overcome these issues.

Part 5: Conclusion

Reflect on the proposed project and the connection to the beneficiary households. How could the project increase food security? What kind of general capital will this bring to the community? Are there other ways to diversify the project that will increase food security and benefit the community? Reiterate some of the major points in the development of the project.

Submission

Formatting: Times New Roman 12 point font, single spaced. APA format for references page which is not included in the total page count.