Building Up an International Research Network for Successful Seed Production Technology Development
and Dissemination Leading South-East Asian Region

Outline

Declining of fishery resources has become a major issue in Asia including Japan, with the population increase and economic development. Establishment of protocol of seafood production by aquaculture which does not dependent on natural resources is one of the promising solutions to this issue. Seeds for aquaculture are bred from parents and reared massively under artificial conditions to conduct aquaculture not depending on natural resources. It is called seed production, and technology for seed production of the target species has been independently developed and improved in each country, but it has not been established in many species. In addition to the protocols for suitable maturation and nutrition for larval culturing, control of infectious diseases are necessary when the scale of seed production become larger. In Japan, where fish farming has been implemented since long ago, seed production technology has been well developed. Utilizing these advanced technologies of Japan, we intend to improve the technology in Southeast Asian countries, and consequently contribute to establish as major seafood producers and suppliers worldwide.

Therefore, in this project, with participation of institutions in five countries, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines and Vietnam in Southeast Asia as counterpart countries, one country concentrates on one target specie, and researchers in each country would conduct their research in cooperation with the Japanese core, TUMSAT and cooperating universities (See Research System). Japanese and the relevant counterpart country experts in the fields of both seed production and disease control would work together in each research team, so that we can develop and improve the protocol of seed production efficiently. The developed protocols for each target species in this project will be transferred to Aquaculture Department of the Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center (SEAFDEC/AQD), an ASEAN research institution, and then disseminated to ASEAN member countries through AQD technical training program. In this project, we focus on five key species in Southeast Asia: mangrove crab (Malaysia), swimming crab (Thailand), slipper lobster (Vietnam), blood cockle (Indonesia) and grouper (Philippines). Members of the participating institutes would meet in the Japanese core TUMSAT or SEAFDEC/AQD in order to extensively discuss the annual activities and results obtained in each year. Furthermore, by visits of Japanese experts to the counterparts and working together with young researchers or graduate students in both sides, we intend to construct a strong network based on both science and trusting relationship. After establishing principal technology of seed production in this 3-year project, we will step up to develop more advanced technologies, such as marker assisted selection and biological control without using medicine, utilizing this network, which could contribute to increasing productivity of aquaculture in Southeast Asia to be worldwide major producers and suppliers.