Major salmon farmer Cermaq has launched its iFarm application, which the company believes will enhance its individual-based and caged farming techniques.
A sensor chamber in the iFarm interface will have the capability to recognize and register each fish, detailing the size of the fish, the number of sea lice present as well as any disease-indicators. The system will also be able to use dot pattern analysis to identify each salmon.
“There will be huge gains if growth can be channeled to the sites of the current type. This growth strategy will preserve and strengthen Norway's advantage as salmon producer within the current site structure. iFarm will be a significant contribution to the solution of the area challenges that aquaculture is facing,” said Cermaq CEO Geir Molvik in a prepared statement.
iFarm will prove particularly effective in combatting one such challenge area, sea lice, by giving Cermaq farmers indication of lice presence while also relaying data to help customize the amount of treatment deployed, curbing costs and upping efficiencies.
“As the fish passes the sensor chamber we can take out individual fish e.g. for lice treatment. We know that lice are very unevenly distributed. Thus, we can reduce lice treatment when we treat only the fish that has lice. Similarly, we sort on the basis of weight and remove the fish ready for harvest without stressing the remaining fish,” Molvik said.
Molvik continued: “As we can monitor each individual, we can detect whether a fish stops growing, differs from previous growth rate, or gets an unexplained decline in condition factor. These may be symptoms that something is wrong with this fish. Because iFarm has the entire growth and conditional history of each individual, we can detect such changes even if the observation is within the normal of the population. Diagnostic work and measures can thus be initiated earlier,” he said.
A technical concept incepted and developed by BioSort AS, the iFarm sensor is one kind of developing technology application opening opportunities for the aquaculture industry, according to Cermaq.
“This is a technological leap for the cage based salmon farming, where we shift from group-based operations to individual registration and treatment. If we succeed with this, the growth vision can be realized within the ‘inshore’-sites,” concluded Molvik.
