The United Kingdom will provide funding for universities and research institutions to implement four projects supporting sustainable aquaculture in Southeast Asia.
On 7 March, U.K.’s national funding agency – U.K. Research and Innovation (UKRI) – announced that it has launched a GBP 12 million (USD 15.5 million, EUR 14.3 million) program to provide funding for four projects to strengthen sustainable aquaculture in Southeast Asia.
These include a project to support small shrimp farmers in Thailand and Vietnam; a program led by U.K.’s University of Southampton to improve mollusk-farming practices in Vietnam, Malaysia, and Indonesia; a project led by U.K.’s Natural History Museum to support the seaweed industry in Southeast Asia; and another led by U.K.’s University of Stirling to develop a digital tool to safeguard ecosystems and support sustainable aquaculture in Vietnam.
The first initiative is a GBP 3 million (USD 3.9 million, EUR 3.6 million), three-year project led by scientists from the University of the West of Scotland (UWS) that is expected to develop affordable, early-warning monitoring systems that will enable small-scale shrimp farmers in Vietnam and Thailand to monitor water quality, detect pathogens, and forecast environmental risks in real time.
“Our project will co-develop accessible, low-cost biosensors and climate models to empower farmers with real-time data, allowing them to act before disease strikes. This is about boosting resilience, increasing productivity, and ensuring sustainability,” UWS Professor Kath Sloman, the project’s lead, said.
Vietnam and Thailand, both major shrimp-producing and -exporting nations, have frequently dealt with disease outbreaks and environmental risks. Existing monitoring technologies to mitigate these risks are either too costly or complicated for small farmers to use, leaving them exposed to sudden losses, according to project co-lead and UWS Professor Fiona Henriquez-Mui.
Henriquez-Mui said she expects the project will help lower shrimp mortality rates and boost yields, and the adaptability of the technology should enable it for use in other aquaculture systems in Southeast Asia and beyond.
As for the latter project receiving UKRI funding, the University of Stirling said in a 17 March statement it has secured GBP 3.5 million (USD 4.5 million, EUR 4.2 million) to implement a research project aimed at boosting sustainable aquaculture in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, with a focus on addressing disease and climate-related challenges in the country’s key pangasius-farming region.
The project, dubbed AquaSoS, will involve creating a digital tool to monitor water quality and environmental conditions utilizing data from satellites, sensors, and labs.
The project will enable fish farmers in the region to manage risks such as pollution, salinization, and disease outbreaks that increasingly pose risks to aquaculture production. It will also provide scientists, policymakers, and industry professionals with necessary information to strike a balance between protecting the environment and maintaining healthy food production levels.
According to project lead Simon MacKenzie, who is the head of the Institute of Aquaculture (IoA) at the University of Stirling, developing countries including Vietnam are facing various climate- and environment-related challenges that threaten food and water security.
“We have chosen to develop our AquaSoS framework in the Mekong Delta in Vietnam because there is multi-species production at scale but an increasing burden of infectious diseases,” MacKenzie said. “Indeed, infectious diseases in Asian and global aquaculture are a major continuous threat to sustainable production. AquaSoS will be designed to address this problem.”
The project is especially pertinent, according to the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP), because climate change and extreme weather events are creating changes in farming environments.
VASEP said in December 2024, citing data from Vietnam’s Department of Animal Health, that these events are affecting the health of farmed fish and bringing about supportive conditions for pathogens to thrive. For example, diseases in pangasius, including liver and kidney abscesses, hemorrhaging, and parasitic infections, caused damage to around 281 hectares of pangasius farming in four provinces in the Mekong Delta in early 2024.
UKRI backing for the projects comes as U.S. funding for similar projects, including in Southeast Asia, has been cut under President Donald Trump’s directives to shutter the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
