Seizing aquaculture’s potential is key theme of Atlantic Canada conference

Aquaculture businesses, leaders, scientists and policy makers will gather in St John's, Newfoundland, next week for the three-day Cold Harvest & Aquaculture Canada joint conference and trade show.

Running from September 15-17, this year’s event, at the Jag Hotel, is themed Sustainable by Nature, Innovative by Design and features sessions on nutrition and feeding, genomics and breeding, climate change and adaptation, and aquatic animal health.

The keynote address - Feeding the Future: Seizing Aquaculture’s Potential in a Resilient and Competitive Canadian Agri-food System - will be given by Scott Ross, executive director of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture.

From vision to reality

Tim Kennedy, president and CEO of the Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance, will moderate a panel headlined From Vision to Reality: Beyond Reaction and Transaction, with contributions from Cooke Aquaculture’s Joel Richardson and Cermaq Canada’s Victoria Windsor, among others.

The Cold Harvest & Aquaculture Canada joint conference and trade show began as a partnership in 1998 as a way to foster connections and collaborations within the seafood farming sector in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, and the world, said the show organisers.

More than 350 delegates are expected to attend what is being billed as “the largest trade show in years in Canada” and a full conference programme, with a line-up of industry experts, speaking on subjects such as the role of AI in fish health and production, the use of triploids in aquaculture, and breeding for resistance to complex gill disease and cardiomyopathy syndrome.

Positive approach

A representative from the Canadian government will also address the conference, as the Canadian sector awaits a more positive approach from the Carney government following years of stalling growth and loss of potential, particularly in British Columbia.

For the full conference programme see here.