【World Oceans Day】Modern marine aquaculture model - mobile "deep sea granary"

【World Oceans Day】Modern marine aquaculture model - mobile "deep sea granary"

Editor's note: "Those who make the world strong must conquer the sea". In recent years, my country has fully mobilized its advantages in scientific and technological innovation, industrial agglomeration, market circulation, and opening up to the outside world, and has made every effort to develop the marine economy. What achievements has my country made in marine aquaculture? What deep-sea aquaculture equipment has been independently developed? On the occasion of World Oceans Day on June 8, Science Popularization China Smart Farmers launched a series of popular science articles on marine aquaculture. Welcome to follow.

Why develop deep-sea aquaculture?

The Earth we live on is a "blue planet" with 70.8% of the Earth's surface covered by the ocean. Marine resources are abundant, but not unlimited. From the comparative data of world capture fisheries and aquaculture production released by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), it can be seen that the future development of fisheries needs to open up new space, and all countries are moving into the deep sea and the ocean.

How to develop deep-sea resources and build sustainable aquaculture methods? Developing smart fisheries provides new ideas.

As the most advanced mobile aquaculture control platform, aquaculture vessels have emerged in some advanced aquaculture countries in recent years. Aquaculture vessels have changed the traditional fishery industry model, expanding marine aquaculture from offshore to deep sea, while solving the problem of immobility of traditional deep-water cage aquaculture. By guiding the deep integration of modern information technologies such as the Internet of Things, big data, and artificial intelligence with aquaculture production, it can not only effectively solve the transformation and upgrading of traditional fishery aquaculture, but also alleviate problems such as offshore aquaculture pollution.

Turkish aquaculture boat (Photo credit: Xu Hao, Director of the Institute of Fishery Machinery and Instruments, Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences)

Norwegian aquaculture vessel (Photo credit: Xu Hao, Director of the Institute of Fishery Machinery and Instruments, Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences)

How did China's large-scale aquaculture vessels develop ?

Fisheries are an important part of the national food security strategy. The development of my country's fisheries requires seeking space in the deep sea and oceans and developing a new mode of marine fishery production based on aquaculture.

Deep blue fisheries are completely different from traditional marine fisheries. They focus on ecology, take the scientific and sustainable use of strategic population resources of marine organisms as their development support, and take deep-sea industrialized and intelligent aquaculture as their main construction body to form a sustainable modern marine fishery.

Deepwater cages ’ “ overtaking on a curve ”

Since the 11th Five-Year Plan, my country has independently developed a variety of deep-water wind and wave resistant cages and supporting aquaculture facilities suitable for my country's sea conditions, and has studied and established deep-water cage aquaculture technologies and models suitable for aquaculture of fish in various sea areas. At present, the deep-water cages developed in my country are catching up with the world's advanced level in terms of scale and intelligence.

Deepwater cages mainly include gravity-type wind and wave-resistant cages, lifting cages, large fences, bottom-sitting cages and deep-sea aquaculture platforms in terms of structural forms. They are also divided into square, round, spherical, butterfly and ship-shaped in shape.

In addition to deep-water wind and wave resistant cages and corresponding equipment, digital aquaculture operation and management software for seawater cages and sophisticated aquaculture techniques and processes are also required, mainly including the cultivation of seedlings of suitable specifications, seedling transportation and release, feed selection and feeding amount, disease prevention and control, and daily monitoring and management, etc. Different aquaculture models, technical processes and aquaculture parameters need to be formulated according to different aquaculture species.

Domestic new deep-sea cages and platforms (designed and manufactured by CIMC Raffles) (Photo credit: Huang Bin, researcher at the Yellow Sea Fisheries Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences)

Domestic new deep-sea cages and platforms (designed and manufactured by CIMC Raffles) (Photo credit: Huang Bin, researcher at the Yellow Sea Fisheries Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences)

"Deep Blue No. 1" (Photo credit: Huang Bin, Researcher at the Yellow Sea Fisheries Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences)

"Zhenbao No. 1" (Photo credit: Huang Bin, researcher at the Yellow Sea Fisheries Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences)

From deep-sea cage farming to large-scale aquaculture vessels

The aquaculture workboat is a new aquaculture system that is more advanced and intelligent than the deep-sea cage aquaculture system. On the workboat, various related elements such as seedling breeding, industrial aquaculture, ship equipment, artificial intelligence, and information technology are effectively combined in a scientific and innovative way.

In recent years, my country has manufactured a number of new aquaculture vessels, which have created a beautiful landscape for my country's fishery industry to go deep into the blue sea. For example, the country's first deep-sea automatic rotating marine fish farming platform "Zhenyu No. 1", the world's first semi-submersible wave energy power generation aquaculture cage "Penghu", and the world's first semi-submersible intelligent offshore fish farm "Ocean Fishery No. 1".

"Zhenyu No. 1" (Photo credit: Huang Bin, researcher at the Yellow Sea Fisheries Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences)

"Penghu" (Photo credit: Huang Bin, researcher at the Yellow Sea Fisheries Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences)

"Ocean Fishery No. 1" (Photo credit: Huang Bin, Researcher at the Yellow Sea Fisheries Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences)

It is worth mentioning that "Guoxin No. 1" was developed by the Fishery Vessel Engineering Innovation Team of the Institute of Fishery Machinery and Instruments, Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences. It is an innovative achievement with "functions and ship types of large-scale aquaculture vessels" and "intensive shipboard fish farming technology and equipment" as the core. It is the world's first 100,000-ton smart fishery large-scale aquaculture vessel, providing major equipment support and industrial demonstration for my country's implementation of the "Deep Blue Fisheries" strategy, becoming a classic case of the transformation of new and old kinetic energy in the shipbuilding industry and the expansion of deep-sea land utilization space, playing the "Chinese Pastoral Song" on the sea in the new era.

The research results related to this ship have resulted in more than 30 independent intellectual property rights, and invention patent applications have been filed in developed fishing countries around the world, attracting the attention of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and scientific peers around the world. "Guoxin No. 1" can effectively avoid offshore aquaculture pollution and offshore aquaculture risks, and is an organic carrier for promoting the intelligent and modern upgrading of my country's marine fisheries.

"Guoxin No. 1" (Photo source: China Fisheries)

In the "Deep Blue Strategy", large work vessels are of great significance: first, they expand aquaculture waters, reduce environmental pressure, are beneficial to ecological environmental protection, and are more conducive to the full utilization of blue land resources; second, optimizing the cage structure can resist the invasion of wind and waves, and improving aquaculture conditions can reduce the harm of diseases, improve fish quality, accelerate fish growth, and improve production efficiency, thereby increasing fishermen's income, improving fishing villages' efficiency, and stabilizing the society in fishing areas; third, closely combining deep-water cage aquaculture with leisure and sightseeing fisheries, and developing marine sightseeing, fishing, sports, tourism and other projects, is also of positive significance for promoting the development of my country's leisure fisheries.

The research on key supporting equipment for the industrialization of deep-sea aquaculture and key technologies for intensive aquaculture has improved the scientific and technological level of deep-sea aquaculture in my country, and provided important scientific and technological support for the implementation of the strategy of high-quality development of fisheries and the adjustment and upgrading of industrial structure. These technologies represent the advanced level of productivity in aquaculture in the world today, with significant economic, social and ecological benefits and broad application prospects.

The construction of large-scale aquaculture vessels reflects the development of my country's smart fishery, helps my country implement the deep-blue fishery strategy, and provides a "Chinese solution" for the sustainable development of the world's fisheries. Although, compared with the international advanced level, there is still a large gap in the field of facility aquaculture engineering technology. However, as a developing world fishing power, in the construction of modern fisheries, China's future aquaculture will inevitably move towards informatization and intelligence through facility construction, and then achieve industrialization.

Author: Liu Yadan (National Chief Science Communication Expert, former Assistant Secretary-General of the Chinese Society of Fisheries, Assistant Secretary-General of the China Rural Professional and Technical Association)

Audit expert: Dai Guoqing (Secretary-General of China Algae Industry Association)

Planning: Wu Yuetong, Xie Yun

Editor: Xie Yun and Jiang Ruiyi (internship)