Headline speakers named for Aquaculture Europe
Economics expert, fish geneticists, and Aqua-Spark chief executive lined up for Vienna event
The European Aquaculture Society has announced its plenary speakers for its annual conference, Aquaculture Europe, which takes place in Vienna, Austria from 18-21 September.
The conference at the Messe Wien Exhibition and Congress Centre has a theme of balanced diversity in aquaculture development, and will cover a wide range of subjects, with 10 sessions running concurrently in different rooms within the venue for each of three days from Tuesday, 19 September to Thursday, 21 September.
József Popp, professor and dean at Szent István University, Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences, Hungary, will deliver the plenary speech on Tuesday.
His main research field includes global food-, energy- and environmental security analysis, competitiveness of the food economy, rural development, supply chain management and renewable energy.
The focus of his speech will be balanced diversity and the responsible use of global resources to produce healthy food.
On Wednesday, Antti Kause, principal scientist at the Natural Resources Institute (LUKE) in Finland and Morten Rye, director for external services and global strategies at aquaculture biotechnology company Benchmark Norway, will deliver the plenary address.
The scientists, who are both genetics experts, will answer the question: “Breeding for resilience – are we ready?”
Investor viewpoint
Thursday’s plenary speaker is Lissi Smit, chief executive of sustainable aquaculture investment fund Aqua-Spark.
Her presentation is titled “Moving aquaculture to more sustainable, healthier and affordable production, an investor viewpoint.”
Smit has over two decades of banking experience mainly in food & agribusiness finance at Netherlands-based Rabobank. It was while sitting on Rabobank’s Investment Committee that Smit first learned about Aqua-Spark and realised the real challenges and opportunities in aquaculture and the role capital can play to develop the perfect food system for the future.
Aquaculture Europe 2023 (AE2023) kicks off on Monday, 18 September with the final conference of the AquaIMPACT (breeding & genomics/nutrition & genetics) project in the afternoon, and the AE2023 opening ceremony at 18:00 CET.
Subjects covered in the following three days of sessions in alternative feed ingredients, genomics, integrated multitrophic aquaculture (IMTA), percid fish culture, fish welfare, precision farming, photoperiod, microplastics, biosecurity, environmental impact and interactions, socioeconomics and consumers, and optimising water and solids in recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS).
See the full programme here.
