by Diogo Thomaz, Managing Director, Innovasea, USA
Myriad factors go into raising healthy fish and operating a profitable fish farm, from protecting fish stocks from environmental threats to improving FCR.
That reality combined with major advancements in aquaculture technology over the last few years has led to an explosion in the amount of data waiting to be analyzed and acted upon.
This presents both a challenge and an opportunity for farm operators.
The challenge comes with figuring out how to collect and harness all the data and put it to good use. If you can do that, you have the opportunity to vastly improve your business and your bottom line.
Unfortunately many fish farms struggle with information overload. If they monitor operations and collect data at all, it’s often done manually using a spreadsheet – a static snapshot that’s often out of date by the time it’s saved.
Spreadsheets almost have too many shortcomings to list. On the data collection side, they’re slow and labor-intensive. They’re vulnerable to human error. Huge data files can become sluggish and crash.
On the reporting side, analysis is cumbersome and useful insights are difficult to unearth. Any truly advanced understanding of farm operations requires long hours from talented data analysts.
An awaited solution
It doesn’t have to be this way, however. New software platforms designed to optimize fish farm operations are part of a broader ecosystem of data-driven aquaculture solutions that are remaking the industry. These farm management solutions are powerful tools that can help farmers:
• Improve efficiency by automating many tasks, including data entry, reporting and inventory management. This frees up farm staff to focus on other important aspects of the business, such as fish health and production planning.
• Reduce costs by providing insights into their operation and identifying areas for improvement. For example, the software can track feed usage and growth rates to help farmers optimize their feeding regimens.
• Increase profitability through better operation and equip farm managers with the data and analytics needed to make sound business decisions.
• Improve sustainability by tracking and monitoring environmental factors, reducing feed waste and optimizing resource use.
A good farm management platform provides a centralized place to manage all aspects of a fish farm – from inventory and feeding operations to harvesting and sales. It makes it easy to track key farm activities and provides the data and information needed to identify operational issues, cut costs and grow the bottom line.
Here’s how farm management software can be used to improve specific aspects of the farming operation:
• Inventory management: Track fish populations, growth rates and mortality rates to determine optimal harvest times.
• Feed management: Track feed usage and fish growth to reduce costs and eliminate waste.
• Water quality: Monitor environmental parameters such as temperature and dissolved oxygen levels to identify and address potential problems before they impact the fish.
• Disease management: Keep an eye on fish health and identify potential disease outbreaks so you can minimize impacts on the fish population.
• Sales and marketing: Track sales and marketing data to identify new markets.
Last year Innovasea entered the farm management software space by acquiring Aquanetix, a company I co-founded in 2013 to make it easier for farm operators of all sizes to track their activities, become more efficient and maximize profits. At the time of the sale, Aquanetix was in use at more than 200 farms in 31 countries and being used to grow more than 30 species of fish and shrimp.
Now called Farm360, the updated solution combines an easy-to-use mobile app with the industry’s only 100 percent cloud-based platform to deliver a holistic, up-to-the-minute view of a farm’s past activities, present status and future forecast.
What does Farm360
Here are some of the things that separate Farm360 from other farm management solutions:
• Real-time data collection: Because it’s cloud-based, Farm360 updates automatically when new data is entered – and that information is immediately available to everyone in the company. Data can be entered manually through the easy-to-use mobile app or web dashboard. It can also be automatically imported from any data source connected to the internet, such as environmental sensors or feeding system monitors.
• Better day-to-day decision making: Farm360’s always up-to-date stock status algorithm delivers key insights into how the farm is performing, including comprehensive reports and data visualizations into areas such as fish health, feeding, biomass and environmental conditions.
• Accurate long-term forecasting: Longer production cycles are just part of the game in aquaculture, so strong planning is crucial. Farm360 delivers two year forecasting for feed quantities, operational costs, fish growth and sales.
• Easy traceability: More and more fish farms are seeking independent validation of their safe, sustainable farming practices from one or more of the key certifications out there, such as the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) certification or the NSF’s Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) certification. Farm360 makes it easier than ever to provide the standardized, time-stamped data required by these bodies so they can monitor and evaluate a farm’s overall operation, inventory management, feed traceability and fry traceability.
There are a lot of things farm owners and managers can do to improve operations – once they know what their challenges are. Farm management software can provide that kind of intelligence and set you on a path to success and sustainability. And we just flipped over to a new year, so now is the perfect time to leave the spreadsheets behind and embrace the power of farm management software.
