Research

Coordinator: Dr. Illie Sava Racotta Dimitrov

According to statistics of Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), worldwide production in aquaculture in 2004 reached a volume of almost 60 million tons and generated an income of approximately $70,300 million dollars. A large amount of this production was sustained by China, which contributed to approximately 70% of the volume and more than 50% of the aquaculture production value at world level. Aquaculture keeps growing more than any other sector for food production of animal origin.

During 1970-2004, FAO reported an annual growth rate of 8.8% in aquaculture activity, while fishing grew only 1.2%. In 2004, aquaculture participated with 43% of the total production of fish and seafood. Because marine product extraction by fisheries seems to have reached a stable exploitation state that does not catch up with the growing demand of fish and seafood, aquaculture shall be the only option to satisfy the demand of aquatic products in the next years.

FAO estimates that world aquaculture production should increase 40 million tons to maintain the current available aquaculture food level per capita. In this context, FAO established a Code of Conduct to help each country develop its aquaculture activity and to individually contribute to increase world aquaculture production.

In Mexico, 224,249 tons of aquaculture products were produced in 2004, which represented approximately 0.4% of world aquaculture production. The income generated by this production was $4,700 million pesos, which represented 0.6% of the world aquaculture production value.

Assuming growing population trends, it is estimated that in 2030, Mexican population will reach almost 121 million persons, and if aquaculture production maintains the same growth trend, it is very likely that fish and seafood consumption per capita will decrease. By 2030, the goal is to have reached an aquaculture production of 1 million tons and have diversified the cultured species.

In the first stage, production growth shall probably be slow. However, in the second stage, we hope that as culture technologies are mastered, production shall have a faster growth. One million tons is the average volume that is currently reached by the first 10 producer countries (without taking China into account).

Mexico has a great potential to increase its aquaculture activity due to its extensive coastline, interior waters, diversity of climate conditions, and natural resources. It also has technological and scientific capabilities. Aquaculture development in the next years shall be greatly important because it will allow to:

1. Increase income from exports
2. Generate well-paid jobs
3. Increase animal protein consumption
   
4. Decrease rural migration
   
5. Decrease poverty
   
6. Guarantee food supply
   

In this global and national setting, the role of the Aquaculture Program in CIBNOR is undoubtedly important, and the great activity this Program had this semester shows the interest there is to appear as a leading group in aquaculture.

The main activities that were developed this semester are listed below:

In February 2008, a strategic planning workshop was organized for the first time with Program researchers. The objective of this workshop was to redefine the mission, approach, and objectives of the Program. Moreover, the strategic lines, which are the axes of the research developed in the Program, were determined jointly for the next years. The results of this workshop were the following:

• Mission: The Aquaculture Program of Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas del Noroeste has the mission of performing interdisciplinary research to contribute to guarantee food supply and social development by generating knowledge, developing technology and highly qualified human resources, and connecting with society within the framework of ethics, social commitment, and sustainability.
   
• Approach: In 2012, the Aquaculture Program will be well-known nationally and internationally as an interdisciplinary group developing top quality human resources who perform excellent and pertinent research contributing to productive improvement and development of profitable aquaculture technologies.
   
• Strategic Objectives:
  • Achieve an increase in publications in high impact journals;
    
  • Achieve at least two publications by each researcher per year through interdisciplinary investigations;
  • Create a gazette easy to distribute and with contributions of each one of the researchers and technicians to spread out the Program to society;
  • Increase the production yield in aquaculture through research and by developing technicians and scientists for aquaculture development ;
  • Develop highly qualified human resources in aquaculture capable of meeting sector demands through scientific research and / or technology development;
  • Generate scientific and technological knowledge to develop an aquaculture industry with ecological responsibility and focused on social welfare;
  • Increase productivity of the researchers assigned to the Program by incorporating a major work force of postgraduate students, helping them graduate in development topics, placing them in industrial jobs, increasing publications in basic science and technology, and developing projects for self-generating funds;
  • Develop and integrate knowledge and animal breeding techniques to farm aquaculture organisms based on research that will allow generating employment and improving the living conditions of the population dedicated to aquaculture through low environmental impact techniques:
  • Offer solutions to specific problems demanded by the aquaculture industry.
     
• Strategic Lines: The four lines of research of the Program are:
  • Developing technology for live feed culture;
  • Developing technology for crustacean culture;
  • Developing technology for mollusk culture;
  • Developing technology for marine fish culture.

Research performed in the Program deals with different topics such as, nutrition, genetics, immunology, pathology, and physiology.

The Aquaculture Program participated actively in producing the National Governing Program for Fisheries and Aquaculture. The objective of this program is to plan the development of the fisheries and aquaculture sectors at national level in the next 20 years. The program was divided in two categories:

1. Diagnosis of the aquaculture sector;
2. Regional consulting workshops.
   

CIBNOR participated with the proposal for a Science and Technology Park sent through an application to CONACYT.

The objectives of the Park are to channel scientific research and technology development in the Center by creating synergy with the different actors of the productive and governmental sectors to transfer technology; offer solutions to problems related to the sectors; train human resources; develop innovative products; incubate and develop enterprises based on technology with high business potential; and constitute groups of knowledge. All of the previous activities are focused on strengthening economic development.