March 05, 2014

President's Column March 2014

It is now becoming abundantly clear that writing WAS President’s columns is well suited to air travel as I am presently flying home (Norfolk, Virginia) from Aquaculture America 2014, held February 9-12 in Seattle, Washington. This was a great conference, led by the United States Aquaculture Society and hosting over 1,800 attendees and 135 booths. I also recently had the pleasure to attend APA 2013 in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, hosted by the Asia Pacific Chapter of WAS. We leveraged this opportunity to conduct the mid-year WAS board meeting at this venue. This APA meeting was likewise also very well attended, with over 2,500 attendees and 115 tradeshow booths. Within the next few months I will be representing WAS at the upcoming FEEDing Pakistan Aquaculture Conference in Lahore, Pakistan April 2-3 and the American Fisheries Society-Mexico Chapter Western Division Annual Meeting, April 7-11 in Mazatlán, Mexico. At that meeting, the WAS and the LAC Chapter will be co-sponsoring a special session titled "Emerging Opportunities for Culture of Marine Fishes in Mexico.

In keeping with the travel theme, prior to departing for Aquaculture America 2014, I had just returned from the inaugural Global Forum for Innovations in Agriculture (GFIA), which was held February 3-5 at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre in the UAE. The theme for the conference focused on agriculture innovations in arid-land regions, a natural fit for aquaculture. In the planning for GFIA, WAS became a Foundation Partner for the conference, participated on the Steering Committee, round-table discussions, and through organization of a "Power Forum" on aquaculture innovations. These aquaculture innovations included the Vellela open-ocean drifter cage, integrated multitrophic aquaculture, aquaponics, biofuels, enabling technologies, and much more. This was a very exciting and successful conference that brought together over 2,000 participants from 60 nations as well as 20 governmental delegations, demonstrated over 150 agriculture innovations, and hosted a tremendous trade show that ran for the duration of the program. The importance of food safety and security in the region was made evidently clear, balanced by a suite of emerging enabling technologies towards sustainable agriculture development in arid-land regions. The organizers of this conference (Turret Media) are already making plans for a bigger and better GFIA conference in 2015 and WAS is planning to enhance its participation in this next event.

Now I wish to address a very important issue relating to the benefits of WAS membership, with special reference to publications. At present, through the Publications Committee and our editors and editorial boards, WAS publishes the magazine World Aquaculture, the Journal of the World Aquaculture Society and topical books on a regular basis. Presently the WAS Board is conducting an in-depth assessment of these publication member benefits. As part of this assessment, a survey will be sent to all WAS members to determine how these services are valued, if they are meeting membership needs and expectations, and to see if there are things that can be done better or differently to enhance publication benefits to members. You should expect to see this survey sometime in March 2014. I strongly urge you to take the time to complete this survey and to let us know your thoughts on the present WAS member publication benefits and what we can do to make them better. We on the WAS Board of Directors, the Executive Committee, and Home Office are here to serve you, the members of WAS, as best as possible and to do so we need this important information from the membership. Once the survey results are compiled, they will be incorporated, along with input requested from the Past-Presidents Committee and past and present WAS publication editors into ongoing analyses and considerations within the WAS Board and Publications Committee. All input will contribute to proposed actions that will be considered during the upcoming annual WAS board meeting that will be held in conjunction with WA 2014 in Adelaide, Australia

Hopefully many of you are planning to attend what is developing into an exceptional program in an amazing location. This will be the first time since 1999 that Australia is hosting World Aquaculture, with the meeting being a joint event co-hosted by the WAS and the highly successful biennial Australasian Aquaculture. Be sure to mark your calendars, take advantage of early registration rates, and consider participating in some of the amazing tours that are being arranged by the organizing committee.

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About Michael Schwarz

WAS President 2013-2014 -- Michael Schwarz, an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation and an aquaculture specialist at the Virginia Seafood Agricultural Research and Extension Center in Hampton, Va., is currently serving as president of the World Aquaculture Society, an organization dedicated to the progressive and sustainable development of aquaculture through science, technology, education, and information exchange.