Chile: The food producer is already thinking about making a second version of the RAS systems event for next year.

During the past week the “BioMar Training Program: Applied Recirculation Course” was carried out; an intensive program in which all the fundamental aspects for planning, design, installation, operation and bio economic aspects of these items were addressed in a theoretical and practical way.

Thus, a total of 43 people from 21 companies in the field had the possibility of being part of the training, sponsored by Veterquimica, Pentair, DSM, Luxmeter Energy, Aquagen, and Salmonexpert as a media partner.

Raul Piedrahita, professor emeritus of the University of California Davis, who was part of the speakers present in the course, catalogued the experience as something very interesting and of great level, since, in addition to reconnecting with Chilean salmon farming and re-establishing connections; “I could see how the interest for recirculation systems is still current and also see their evolution in recent years”.

“The level of attendees is very good, especially in terms of practical experience. Almost all participants are working in the industry, managing the systems and know exactly how to work in their respective companies, so our contribution is to add principles that will help them have a better understanding of why facilities work as they do and how they can try to optimise them in a better way”, he said.

For his part, Joel Barraza, an academic from the Universidad Catolica del Norte, who was also a speaker during the course, emphasises that the importance of the course was to unite theory with practice and to delve into the fundamental principles of recirculation.

“In this occasion, we managed to retake the fundamental concept of recirculation, its principles and the phenomena that it involves, especially related to water quality, something that directly affects fish”, Barraza said.

“There was also a good mix between those who have experience, those who came to learn and the knowledge support we have given. It was very enriching since the course was focused on the concepts brought to practical application with the experience of those in the industry”, he added.

On behalf of BioMar, Victor Vidal, FW technical assistant of the food producer, pointed out the great general interest coming from the industry to participate in this course and that they are already thinking about an upcoming version.

“As BioMar, we are highly committed to caring for the environment and it is for this reason that we support this and other initiatives pointing in that direction; for this very same reason and due to the success of the course and the many requests of different companies to participate, we are thinking of making a second version next year”, said Vidal, adding that during the course, “knowledge could be improved by delivering the biological, physical and chemical fundamentals, as well as engineering associated with the RAS, so that  participants make a good interpretation of what they observe daily and therefore make better decisions.”

Impression

Juan Mora, production manager for Salmones Blumar, who was among the participants, said “it was a very satisfactory activity, not only because there was a great deal of knowledge being shared, but also there was great interest during practical applications of the information delivered. Many chapters included details of fish farming technics, as well as system handling technics, which is something that will be very useful to us as a daily complement in our activities. We could also delve into knowledge that is rather of general nature today, and in pursue of a more efficient productive process”.

Likewise, Claudio Astudillo, reproduction and operations manager for hatchery at Forever Ocean in Panama said that even with 8 years of experience working with this kind of system “teachers with a higher level were able to clear many doubts with completely applicable solutions that we will implement in Panama, where this kind of technology does not exist yet.”

Lastly, he pointed out that even when all given knowledge was very relevant “what caught my attention was the aquaponic system, which can be implemented together with the recirculation technology. This kind of circular economy carried out by Dr. Merino is genius and it should be incorporated at all levels of education, in order to change the current mentality and achieve sustainability in aquaculture production.”

Source: https://www.salmonexpert.cl/article/con-xito-culmina-curso-de-recirculacin-aplicada-organizado-por-biomar/?fbclid=IwAR2MYXTeh-9ws43mg6UYUSbSbZuT9P6AQz2N3nsXGhDTAyqoFUt1cVK89dg