The TAF Project: a look back at 2020

In February 2020, before the pandemic shook the world, we did the third workshop for the TAF Project on sustainable aquaculture in artisanal farming, together with our partner, the IFC in Camboriú, Brazil. Our goals were to discuss progress, have in-depth discussions, and field visits to farmers to gather more information.

We first met with the school's directorate to get insights in the workings of the IFC and discuss future collaborations. During the workshop, Professor Ram and Dr Samuel presented the overall progress of the project, while prof. Yanqing talked about big data in smart aquaculture in China.
Professor Joaquim Valverde, the PI on the Brazilian side explained how far the software development is going, and they were expecting to finish the backend soon. Obviously, the pandemic has derailed that but we stay positive that it can be tested when work can resume. We also saw a hardware implementation to automate machinery by alumnus Alan Miranda (right photo).

EPAGRI, the agricultural development agency of the state was also present and talked about aquaculture development in Santa Catarina. At the end, we had a roundtable discussion with all participants to talk about the next steps. Left photo: view of the farm.

The following day we went to do field visits by two farmers we had already visited earlier. We felt that we needed more information and this follow-up interviews helped us to throughly understand the challenges that farmers face. Students also had the chance to see farm operations in practice, helping them understand how water monitoring would help in the production process.

Our first stop was at Ofélia and Paulo Marangoni, who have an aquaculture site in Gaspar. Mrs Ofélia is also the president of the regional aquaculture cooperative so she has in-depth knowledge of issues affecting the whole community. She demonstrated us how water monitoring is happening currently: manually and timeconsuming. The solution that we are researching is using IoT for continuous monitoring. If we can have continuous data, we can prevent problems and improve the sustainability of the business. John Buglear, a professor from Nottingham Trent University accompanied us on this trip and he looked at it from a business-oriented perspective: how can we make farmers more productive and profitable.

Our second farmer was Marcelo Luchetta. Photos below: fish feeding process, a small Tilapia

Although his farm is smaller, he also produces sugarcane and palmita, a product of the palm tree, and he uses fish waste as fertilizer. Furthermore, his brother produces cachaça, a liquor made from sugarcane, grown at the farm. As such, there is a certain level of integrated agriculture going on, which contributes to sustainable farming.

We already spoke of the hardware automation by Alan Miranda. Together with Samuel and another ex-student Leonardo Croda is building FishLabs, a start-up company for IoT in aquaculture, producing a modular water quality monitoring system and machinery automation. Because Samuel was doing a fellowship in Rio de Janeiro at the Getúlio Vargas Foundation, we got a guided tour of the University and talked to researchers about future collaborations.

Although the pandemic has severely affected our work, the project so far has been a success: we have struck partnerships with Brazilian higher education institutions and it has led to a spinoff company. We are looking forward to the next steps and are positive for future projects. This project is consolidating UoB's expertise in aquaculture, following in the footsteps of the ADPAC project

The TAF project was financed by the UKRI Newton Fund in the UK and by FAPESC in Brazil.