|
Dear Interested Partner
EAFDEC/AQD welcomes your
interest in bringing responsible aquaculture to Southeast Asia including the
Philippines. We have three mandated areas of concern: research, technology
verification and commercialization, and training and information dissemination.
SEAFDEC/AQD
has a new area prioritized for collaboration: fisheries and aquatic
biotechnology. We officially call it the development of Advanced Aquaculture
Technologies. At present, we are mainly focused on four areas: molecular
microbiology (rapid disease detection and diagnosis), molecular endocrinology
and genetics (growth enhancement and genetic characterization of wild stocks of
freshwater prawns), algal production (strain improvement in seaweeds and high
density production of algae used as food for fish, crustacean and mollusk
larvae), and fish feed technology (nutrient enhancement and development of
low-polluting diets). We have the facilities for biotech R&D at our main station
in Iloilo, Philippines, courtesy of a grant-in-aid from the Government of Japan
to the Government of the Philippines. We manage the biotech laboratories with
the Department of Agriculture. Any proposals on the above would be welcome.
Traditionally, SEAFDEC/AQD has collaborated on the breeding, hatchery, grow-out
culture, feed development, fish health management, socioeconomics, and stock
enhancement of the following economically important commodities:
-
MOLLUSCS [abalone, top shell, giant clam, oyster-mussel]
-
CRUSTACEANS [mudcrab, giant tiger shrimp, white shrimp, giant freshwater
prawn]
- FISHES
[grouper, milkfish, tilapia, bighead carp, catfish, seabass, snapper, siganids]
-
SEAWEEDS [Gracilaria, Kappaphycus]
- DIATOMS
/ MICROALGAE
SEAFDEC/AQD has also successfully implemented a project on CFRM (community
fishery resources management) in Malalison Island, Culasi, Antique Province,
west central Philippines. The CFRM project organized the community into a strong
organization that was granted territorial use rights in fisheries, provided
alternative and supplemental livelihood, regenerated the fish habitats and
increased fish stocks.
There had also been collaborations in the conduct of training courses, and of
familiarizing faculty about new fisheries research methodologies. SEAFDEC/AQD
had co-published handbooks with its Partners, as well as signed publications
exchange agreements with international and local libraries.
New collaborative proposals may or may not be limited to these areas.
MECHANISM
For the private sector (individual fishfarmers and/or farmer groups),
single-project collaborations are preferred where AQD may partly provide the
input and gets to field-test its technology while the fish farmer or farmer
group enjoys the proceeds of the trial run and becomes a demonstration farm of
the new and improved technology. It is also possible to bring in a third
Partner, like a banking/funding institution, to this kind of cooperation.
Single and multi-disciplinary collaborations can be had with
international/regional/local R&D institutions and academic bodies,
non-government organizations, people's organizations, local government units in
the Philippines among others. SEAFDEC/AQD can form a multi-disciplinary team of
experts to collaborate with you. A broad Memorandum of Understanding can be
worked out between SEAFDEC/AQD and the Partner at the start, to be later refined
into Memorandum of Agreement/s on specific projects or proposals.
SEAFDEC/AQD covers quite a lot of ground, having had 33 years of experience in
bringing sustainable aquaculture technologies to the industry. We would be happy
to provide more information not shown in this website, and are always agreeable
to a meeting to discuss areas of collaboration.
| Very truly yours, |
 |
JOEBERT D. TOLEDO, D.Agr.
Chief, SEAFDEC/AQD |
 |
