JCU researchers are hoping to unlock the enormous potential of grouper fish as a source of healthy seafood in Australia and Vietnam.
JCU's Tropical Aquafeed Innovations Lab (TAIL) is partnering with the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) to remove key barriers that have stifled the growth of this high-value species as a food source.
A lack of specific grouper feeds has held back the industry but this project, led by TAIL head and JCU Associate Professor Dr Leo Nankervis, is making great strides in developing formulated feeds to combat disease and achieve optimal growth.
"In Vietnam, the cheapest way to feed the high value carnivorous fish like grouper has been to use low value wild-caught fish. But this practice can lead to pollution and poor health outcomes for the grouper," Assoc Prof Nankervis said.
"They really needed a formulated feed to fill the gap and enable growth in the industry.
"In Australia, producers have been using feeds developed for other species and that's resulted in sub-optimal growth and pathological results.
"So, we've targeted this project around understanding some of the key nutrient drivers of growth, health and production, and then the project aims to disseminate that information, both in Australia and in Vietnam, with our commercial partners."
This 'full supply chain' view taken by JCU and its partners in the project focuses on raw materials to feed production, through to farming methods, to improve formulated feeds.
Post-doctoral Research Fellow Dr Simon Das said the fundamental scientific questions are getting asked and answered in the JCU lab and the group are then translating that into the biggest scale commercial implementation in Vietnam, but also in Australia.
"Day to day we're actually monitoring everything, their behaviour in the tanks, how they are performing with the new diet and if there are any physiological changes in the groupers," Dr Das said.
"Our main constraint has been what to feed the groupers, but we are working on that now and coming up with very precise feeds that can be adopted first by smaller scale farmers and then expanded from there."
Assoc Prof Nankervis said he's excited by the project's potential and for their work with funding agency ACIAR to support more developmental projects like this.
"ACIAR is really focused on economic benefits for Australia and partner countries through supporting good quality, impactful research," he said.
"Being able to help produce those community benefits that you get from lots of small holders, and enabling small holders to become SMEs (small to medium enterprises) by streamlining their growth is a really important thing for us, but also for our funders."
