Rodrigo Prado, a civil engineer and director of USONIC Ltda. in Puerto Montt, Chile, won the Global Aquaculture Alliance’s (GAA) Preferred Freezer Services Global Aquaculture Innovation & Leadership Award on Thursday at GAA’s GOAL 2014 conference in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
USONIC has conducted numerous trials involving ultrasound to control sea lice (Caligus rogercresseyi) infestations near Chile’s Atlantic salmon industry. The application of ultrasound underwater, directly in fish pens, has shown to have a lethal effect on juvenile stage of the lice, while not harming the fish or marine mammals due to the low power and frequencies used (only 20 KHz per transmitter).
Accepting the award on Prado’s behalf was Constanza Alvial (pictured). Prado’s work was co-financed by the Chilean National Agency of Economic Development. Alvial said that sea lice has cost the industry in Chile USD 300 million (EUR 235 million) per year since 2009.
“After five years investigating ultrasound to control sea lice and after eight full-scale trials in the sea, we do not have doubts that this is a great technology, specially with no environmental effects,” Prado said, via Alvial’s presentation. “That should be considered among the solutions to control se lice in salmon farming in Chile. Results were almost the same in all the experiences, very good indeed, with reductions between 30 to 50 percent in total sea lice loads per fish.”
This is the second consecutive year that GAA has offered the award, which is designed to recognize innovative practices that overcome production challenges or mitigate negative environmental or social impacts at aquaculture farms. This year the award was expanded to include leadership, to coincide with the GOAL 2014 theme, “Celebrating Leadership.”
All types of innovations qualified for the award, including wetlands conservation, feed management, water-quality management, effluent reduction, energy reduction, staff training, community relations, animal welfare, and health and nutrition.
The four judges were GAA President George Chamberlain; Best Aquaculture Practices Standards (BAP) Coordinator Dan Lee; Michael Tlusty, director of research at the New England Aquarium; and Dawn Purchase, senior aquaculture officer at the Marine Conservation Society.
Preferred Freezer Services, based in New Jersey, USA, is a cold-storage and logistics provider with 30 facilities in the United States, three in China and one right here in Ho Chi Minh City. Dan DiDonato, VP-sales and marketing, presented Alvial with a plaque and a USD 1,000 (EUR 784) cash prize.
