ADDRESS BY DR. T.V.R. PILLAY
Programme Leader
Aquaculture Development & Coordination Programme
FAO, Rome
It is my pleasant duty this morning to convey to you the greetings and good wishes of the Director-General of FAO and of the FAO Fisheries Department on the occasion of the Second Advisory Committee Meeting of the Network of Aquaculture Centres in Asia. I must add to this the greetings of the Aquaculture Development and Coordination Programme under the framework of which NACA has been established. The fact that almost all the participating governments and donors of the regional project that are involved in the Network activities are represented at this meeting clearly demonstrates, if any is needed, of the importance of the Network to the development of aquaculture in the region.
About two years ago when NACA was launched, it was more a concept, based on Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries and there were undoubtedly a good number of sceptics, who were for very valid reasons doubtful of the extent of cooperation that could be developed with the limited and short-term resources available to the project. While nobody really questioned the concept per se, its practicality was in doubt, specially in an atmosphere where the involvement of international and bilateral agencies were identified with substantial inputs in terms of funds and personnel. Despite the interest of donor agencies in aquaculture, it was found impossible to mobilize the type and magnitude of inputs required to organize regional cooperative activities to achieve the objectives of NACA in the manner in which they have been done in other fields in the past. So, to put it rather frankly, we decided to make a virtue of a necessity and set out organizing the three major regional support activities for aquaculture development, viz. training of senior aquaculture personnel, applied research for technology development and verification, and collection and dissemination of relevant information, within the framework of TCDC. I must admit that the going has not been easy, but as you will hear from the reports of the Coordinator and Centre Directors, we have been able to initiate all these three activities. They are not all in the same stage of progress yet, and this is not in anyway unexpected as will be obvious from the nature of work involved.
Eventhough the type of training offered by NACA is different from any attempted elsewhere, this part of the programme has been relatively less difficult. The Second Senior Aquaculturists Course is now nearing completion and preparations are already underway for the third course. Two courses for Senior Technicians in Integrated Fish Culture have been completed and the third course will commence next April.
On the other hand, the implementation of multidisciplinary team research for improvement or development of aquafarming systems has been probably the most difficult. Besides developing the required facilities and getting together the personnel, there has been the problem of changing attitudes of researchers. The NACA programme of research concentrates on a small number of production systems and putting together relevant techniques ranging from the design and construction of installations and seed production, to water management and harvesting, with multi-stage economic evaluations to determine the viability of the systems. This type of work differs from the brilliant individual investigations that contribute to scientific knowledge and enables the scientist to survive in an atmosphere of ‘publish or perish’ that exists in many institutions and agencies. Such work can normally produce at best techniques and seldom production technologies. These difficulties are gradually being overcome and work is now underway on the farming systems that this Committee selected at its last meeting. With luck, we expect that the Lead Centres will be in a position to offer improved technologies for testing in national centres within the next two years.
In the first meeting of this Committee in Iloilo, I mentioned about the Aquaculture Information System that ADCP had developed. The necessary hardware have now been installed and are operating in the Philippines and Thailand Centres. The India Centre should have it installed shortly and we hope that the China Centre will also have them early in the new year. It is, of course, clear that the most important, but difficult part of the system is the collection of data from different sources. For this purpose we need the cooperation of as many institutions and individuals as possible from within the region and outside. I am pleased to inform you that this activity has aroused considerable interest in both developing and developed countries world-wide. Many of them have offered to participate. Participation in the system has to be not only as users but also as providers of information. The AQUIS input forms and the instructions for their use are available in all the Lead Centres. I would urge all of you to cooperate by providing the data that are readily available to you or you can arrange to collect. Such cooperation will enable us to build up the data bank of worldwide information that is aimed at. Although the original AQUIS programme was developed for operation on only HP3000 family of minicomputers, we are now converting the programme for use also on other computers and this should enable us to expand the coverage and service of the system.
As you know, the main sources of funding for NACA so far have been the host governments or agencies and UNDP, to whom we have all to be most grateful. The training component of the project has received the valuable support of the Government of Japan through SEAFDEC, in the form of fellowships. We very much hope that this assistance will be continued and extended also to other areas of work of NACA. All the regional and inter-regional activiites in the field of aquaculture that ADCP has organized in the last few years are in fact the follow-up of the FAO Technical World Conference on Aquaculture organized with the assistance of Japan in 1976 in Kyoto, and it is therefore only natural that we look forward to their continued support.
We are very pleased that we have been able to make a beginning in cooperation with IDRC who has made available fellowships for candidates from three countries for the Third Senior Aquaculturists Course. It has been possible also to arrange for the donation of their MINISIS package for bibliographic information to NACA Centres for our information system. As our long-term objectives are shared by IDRC, we feel confident that acceptable procedures can be worked out for expanding and strengthening this cooperation.
I should mention here NACA's continued cooperation with the University of the Philippines in the Visayas, which has made it possible for qualifying candidates from our Senior Aquaculturists course to be awarded the degree of Master of Aquaculture.
May I now turn very briefly to a subject that is somewhat ambiguously stated in the provisional agenda, but somewhat clarified through a later annotation. I am sure, all of you will agree that the continued operation of NACA is necessary for achieving its objectives and the three years of operation by the end of 1983, which is the currently approved duration of the UNDP project, could only have demonstrated its value, rather than produce all the results required. It is essential that this meeting go further than at the last meeting on the question of establishing a joint-funding system for the Network, which could comprise contributions by participating governments and donor agencies. Of course there can also be other alternative arrangements, which could lighten the burden of the present donors. I hope that this matter will receive the Committee's due attention and its decisions or recommendations can be made available to UNDP when they review the project in 1983.
I do not wish to take more of the limited time you have to cover a rather long agenda. I only wish to express here ADCP's and FAO's hope that your review of NACA programme of work and advice on future activities, will be as helpful and constructive as in the past.
Thank you.
