Optimizing data for resource efficiency in aquaculture
Aquaculture accounts for 52% of the aquatic animal products consumed globally – a number that is expected to increase to meet consumer demand. While seafood from aquaculture generally has a lower environmental footprint than raising terrestrial animal proteins, it is not without risk.
Business–as–usual coastal aquaculture poses threats to surrounding ecosystems, primarily through excess organic waste – that often results from over feeding – flowing into and polluting nearshore waters. The aquaculture industry is also large and fragmented and many small farms lack the data or tools to implement the most efficient farming strategies, which leads to yield gaps. This is particularly true in emerging markets.
Wittaya is focused on optimizing the use of aquaculture feed that accounts for over 60% of the cost to farmers and is the largest contributor to aquaculture’s environmental footprint. Usually between 60-90% of a farm's environmental footprint can be attributed to feed.
The company
Wittaya Aqua is an aquaculture intelligence software developer that aims to optimize feed formulation and feeding practices through a data-driven approach to improve production and supply chain efficiency.
Wittaya works with farmers and aquafeed, ingredient, and additive producers translating decades’ worth of aquaculture data and research into actionable recommendations on biomass management, feed formulation and feeding practices. The company is also developing it capabilities, such as carbon footprint optimization and spot price tracking based on customer feedback. Wittaya has developed a suite of tools that connect large amounts of data associated with raw material supply, true ingredient value, feed formulation, traceability, nutritional requirements, growth and feed prediction, and real-time performance bench marking. Despite the complexities of the data, Wittaya has developed simple platforms to help farmers and feed companies reduce their environmental footprint and make intelligent business decisions.
The investment
CI Ventures has invested US$ 350,000 to support Wittaya Aqua scale its business and expand in Southeast Asia. CI Ventures believe the company presents a compelling opportunity to directly address a key driver of coastal ecosystem degradation, while financially incentivizing aquaculture farmers to change their practices to benefit their bottom lines and the environment.
The impact
A key part of Wittaya’s value proposition is that it has validated models for many data-limited tropical species and learned how to quickly adapt new models for new species in new geographies - focusing on South East Asia. For these data-limited tropical species, Wittaya’s product can create significant gains in efficiency (24-40%), bringing farms in line with current best practices. Additionally, through this investment, Wittaya’s business model could ultimately:
Enable 10,000 farms to decrease their carbon footprints by up to 20%
Decrease feed conversion ratios by >20% for at least 10,000 farms
Support sustainable livelihoods for more than 50,000 farming employees, the majority of which are smallholders
