A quick, cost-effective, cloud-based platform, which could solve one of fish farming’s biggest challenges, has received a US$100,000 grant for concept development and testing.
The University of Queensland’s Dr Andrew Barnes is helping bring together years of fish pathogen data, combining it with new pathogen DNA sequences from infected fish, aiming to build a cloud-based service that accurately diagnoses a range of fish diseases.
“Aquaculture is one of the fastest-growing food production sectors in the world,” he said.
“Managing outbreaks is often hindered by limited knowledge of the pathogens, which in turn contributes to anti-microbial resistance, as farmers use the wrong kinds or quantities of antibiotics on their fish.”
The team behind the concept was one of five winners in the Inspire Challenge 2019, organised by the CGIAR Platform on Big Data in Agriculture.