USA.- Commercial aquaculture farmers in Hawaii and the U.S.-affiliated Pacific islands are dependent on imported feeds to sustain their businesses, as there are currently no commercial feed mills in the region. This situation has created a huge financial burden to the farmers and has significantly limited the expansion of local agriculture and aquaculture to enhance food security and island sustainability. In an effort to address this issue, CTSA is supporting two ongoing projects to develop local feeds for tilapia and moi at the Oceanic Institute of Hawai’i Pacific University (OI) Feeds Research and Pilot Production Facility in Hilo, Hawaii.
The project “Development of Cost-Effective Aquatic Feeds Using Locally Sourced Ingredients” is aiming to produce practical extruded tilapia feeds at the newly-built feed mill in Hilo. The first steps of the project were to collect and analyze new local feed ingredients such as tuna fishmeal from America Samoa, defatted haematococcus, spirulina, corn, and coconut meal, and to procure low priced commercial feed ingredients such as soy bean meal and wheat flour. Researchers at University of Hawai’i at Hilo PACRC then utilized feed formulation software to formulate tilapia feeds based on the following criteria: 1) nutrient requirement of the target species; 2) nutritional quality of local ingredients; 3) unit price of protein and carbohydrate ingredients; and 4) requirements for practical feed processing.
More information at: http://www.ctsa.org/index.php/news/ctsa_project_update_producing_local_feed_for_tilapia_and_moi_at_the_hilo_fe
