Workshop Report

The participants to the Workshop on Hatchery Management, organized by MEDRAP II Project, in cooperation with Cultivos Piscicolas Marinos, S.A. (CUPIMAR), came from Albania, Algeria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Egypt, Lebanon, Libya, Malta, Morocco, Portugal, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey and Croatia.

The first day of the workshop was dedicated to visiting the CUPIMAR hatchery, Nursery of Palma, PEMARES Governmental Aquaculture Center, San Jamie Fattening Area, a shellfish commercialization center, and a training school for aquaculture technicians.

The opening session began with a welcome statement by the MEDRAP II Coordinator, Mr. AKROUT, who thanked the organizers and stressed the needs for a cooperation among the MEDRAP II member countries and the Mediterranean members EEC countries.

Mr. Jose de Mier, Major of Chiclana, addressed the opening session, welcoming the participants and wishing success for the workshop.

The meeting elected:

Lectures on Experiences from various hatcheries and research stations

Mr. Lazaro Rosa Jordan, Managing Director of CUPIMAR, presented a communication on the CUPIMAR experience in hatchery and gave information on the financial and technical activities of the company.

Mr. Ayari Abdelaziz, from «Aquaculture du Sud Tunisien» (Tunisia) presented the AST experience on water management in a marine fish hatchery using closed and semi-closed water circulation system. He presented the advantages of the system to obtain the best water quality and sea bass frys all over the year.

Mr. Ksouri Jamel, from INSTOP (Tunisia) spoke about the difficulties and limitations in the management of an experimental hatchery located in a rural site and have presented several operational problems.

Mr. T. Giger, from Turkey spoke about his experience at the PINAR Sea Products and Co, presenting information on the production system of sea bream fry with high rate of larvae with swimbladder.

Mr. Moretti A. from STM (Italy) presented a communication on the specific design criteria, seeing indexes and criteria, sizing indexes and constructions specifications widely adopted by STM when implementing several hatcheries in past years.

Mrs. M.A. Ramos (Portugal) communication was about on the final maturation and ovulation in marine fish explaining the physiology of fish reproduction.

Mr. P. Lavens (Belgium) made a communication on the nutritional management in a hatchery, the use of Micro algae, rotifer, brine shrimp and the new progress in larviculture nutrition with (n-3) HUFA - enriched artemia and formulated substitution products.

Following these communications special hatcheries topics such as clam and shrimp hatcheries were discussed.

Mr. J.P. Baud, from IFREMER Boin (France) made a communication on management of a clam hatchery, and presented the recent results of intensive rearing of clams (Ruditapes philippinarum) with intensive phytoplancton production and the potential uses of subterranean salt water for such culture.

Mr. J. Kasmi, from Morocco gave a presentation on an experience made in MAROST shellfish hatchery to produce 10 million of Ostrea Edulis spat.

Mr. Alphonso V. (Spain) presented the subject of «Management of shrimp (Penaeus japonicus) hatchery» from CUPIMAR experience.

Mr. R. Boukabous (Morocco) spoke on shrimp hatchery in MAROST and gave a general shrimp hatchery guideline.

Mr. S. Agrotis, Managing Director of Sagro Aquaculture Ltd of Cyprus analyzed the financial implications relating to the initial investment, management and operations of a marine hatchery.

Before ending their work, Mrs. M. Rocio Robles (Spain) from «Escuela de Acuicultoras» gave information on her experience in training technicians for aquaculture activities.

A feeling of satisfaction with the results of the workshop and the level of discussions dominated all the participants.

Some technical conclusions were drawn from the communications and the discussion confirmed the importance of the site selection, water quality, nutrition and the qualification of personnel for the success of aquaculture.

It was also stressed the need of further research on hatchery management and diversification of the production.

The Network on Diversification of Aquaculture production should be involved in these actions.

The participation of the private producers from Spain, Portugal, Cyprus, Egypt, Turkey, Tunisia, Morocco, Malta and Bulgaria gave the workshop fruitful results and confirmed the general conviction the MEDRAP II countries are in the right way to further institutional collaboration in the field of aquaculture.

A meeting was arranged between the private producers to discuss the methods of collaboration among themselves, by making an adjustment in the agenda. They have been informed of the two coming meetings of MEDRAP II, which are:

• seminar on planification on aquaculture development (social, economical and legal aspects) and Mediterranean cooperation (Algeria, 1–5 June 92);

• Production sub-network seminar (Morocco 22–24 September) 1992).

All the recommendations of the private producers were adopted.

Recommendations

1. Continuation of MEDRAP Project for the elaboration of a strategy to develop of the aquaculture in the region. FAO and EEC are invited to confirm the mission of MEDRAP as a canal of connection between all the countries in the region.

2. The working mechanisms of cooperation networks must be established specially for the following:

   1. training
   2. transfer of technology;
   3. rational utilization of the regional potential;

   4. preservation of natural resources, conservation of the ecosystem and protection of the environment.

3. Organization of the producers:

   1. to control the production level in connection with markets in the region;

   2. to discover new markets and promote the consumption of aquaculture food.

The representative of PINAR Company (Turkey) expressed the wish to host a MEDRAP meeting.