Q-Validus, an Irish company that provides certification standards, has secured €370,000 in European funding, over two years, as part of a €3.1m AquaSmart project within the aquaculture sector.
With the help of the European Union’s (EU) Horizon 2020 funding programme, the AquaSmart project is aiming to enhance the aquaculture sector by helping companies to gather and implement big data more efficiently, increasing profitability but with an added emphasis on making the company more sustainable from an environmental standpoint.
Developed at Waterford Institute of Technology’s (WIT) TSSG division, AquaSmart is a multinational co-operative project which aside from processing data that aims to contribute to the aquaculture sector, due to be worth US$195.13bn by 2019, will develop a training programme and training activities in ICT and cloud technology.
Meanwhile, Q-Validus, headquartered at NexusUCD, at University College Dublin, will use the €370,000 funding garnered from the Horizon 2020 funding programme to deliver the quality assurance aspects of the AquaSmart project.
This will include the establishment of the ‘big data’ fish farm analytics standard in line with the CEN (European Committee for Standardisation) Workshop Agreement protocols.
Garry Cleere, managing director of Q-Validus said of the importance of the funding procurement, “The development of a fish farm analytics standard led by Q-Validus will help companies to better estimate daily biomass, optimise feeding rates and management practices.
“This will improve the FCR (Feed Conversion Rate), which means less feed will be provided to the fish and therefore, less organic material and energy are consumed for the production of the feed, which will also have a further positive impact on the environment.”
Aquaculture image via Shutterstock
