The Philippines' Congressional Commission on Science, Technology and Engineering (COMSTE) this week presented a locally developed farm-to-market ecosystem for aquaculture at the 8th Asia Pacific Telecommunication and ICT Development Forum in Macau. Senator Edgardo J Angara, chair of COMSTE, said that the forum was an excellent venue for the Philippines to share its advances in promoting good aquaculture practices, including new technologically enhanced fish-kill solutions.
The APT SHARE project aims to help fishers avoid losses arising from fish kills through the establishment of a broadband farm-to-market ecosystem. Currently being piloted at Lake Palakpakin in Laguna province, the programme aims to create a sustainable lake-based aquaculture environment, which is important to the Philippines's quest for stable fish food supplies.
The project employs several new technologies that address problems such as fish kills. Engineering and environmental science researchers designed a floating field device that can roam around the lake measuring water clarity, dissolved oxygen, temperature and depth. It can even take underwater videos of fish movement. The measurements are fed wirelessly to a data centre in the community, allowing local people to monitor the health of the lakes system. Fishing communities reportedly found the underwater cameras very useful in ensuring that their nets were properly containing their catch.
The project also implements remote sensing techniques tied up with cloud computing and data from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to create decision support systems and sustainability mapping. Fish-feeding technologies will also be explored, such as the utilisation of market waste to produce fish feed. All data will eventually be directly accessible via cloud technology to smart-phones, enabling fisherfolk to manage and maintain the aquaculture network. In the future, the project will be linked to communities in Thailand and Japan, sharing the lessons learned in Lake Palakpakin.
"This groundbreaking technology is empowering our fisherfolk, allowing them to increase their productivity and protect their livelihood," said Angara. "At the same time, we are contributing immensely to the global knowledge on aquaculture management." Angara cited a recent case that hit Taal Lake and the loss of PHP5 million (US$116,117) worth of fish in Legazpi City as good examples of severe fish kills that devastated the local fishing communities.
The APT SHARE project is a collaboration between COMSTE, the Ateneo Innovation Centre (AIC), and various organisations in Japan and Thailand, and is being funded by the Asia Pacific Telecommunity organisation of Japan.
FIS (www.fis.com)