The VIV Asia 2019 event was held during the same week as the GFFC in Bangkok and Neil Auchterlonie took the opportunity to attend for the first time. We have been aware of VIV Asia as an event for some time, and it was clear at first sight that this is an extremely important trade event with a large number of exhibitors right across pig, poultry egg, dairy and fish industries. Having just come from the GFFC where there was much talk about the importance of Asia as a rapidly developing market, and the VIV event served to emphasize those words.  The aquatic protein sector was represented this year in the form of an Aquatic Pavilion.

This year VIV Asia held an Aquatic Asia side event with a theme of shrimp farming and farm technology.  The side event was organised by International Aquafeed which also had a booth at VIV Asia, and for whom Neil writes a monthly column.  International Aquafeed obviously see the importance of the region for their readership market, and the high numbers of people attending both the stands at the exhibition and the side-event itself was testament to the importance of the aquaculture and aquafeed industries in the region.

In terms of aquatic species, shrimp has now overtaken salmon as the number one species by volume using fishmeal, so this is an important industry and it was interesting to hear all about the perspectives of the issues within Asian shrimp production systems.  Largely these are the same topics that some up regularly in all such events.  A reflection perhaps of the organisers interest, the day-long schedule had a clear nutritional emphasis and the discussion included both reference to the importance and continuing use of fishmeal in shrimp feeds, but alongside the utilisation of some of the novel ingredients such as krill meal, insect protein, algal extracts and land animal proteins.  The keynote speaker was Prof Simon Davies of Harper Adams University in the UK, well known to Neil and very sympathetic to the (often) inaccurate representation of fishmeal and fish oil as aquafeed ingredients by the global media.  It was another good opportunity to get some of IFFO’s key messages out in the public domain, and well worth attending.

Author: Neil Auchterlonie