Leveling Up Aquaculture
Launched as a project at Google parent company Alphabet’s X, the moonshot factory, the first step the Tidal founding team took was a deep dive into learning about salmon aquaculture operations. Through speaking to multiple expert farmers and close collaboration with a leading salmon aquaculture company, Tidal learned about the challenges farmers faced and what they wished for. One resounding message focused on the profound impact innovation around feeding operations could have. With that, Tidal began developing an all-in-one smart camera system leveraging machine learning and artificial intelligence. The Tidal system was designed to allow farmers to manage regular pen operations while providing novel real-time insights into fish growth and health. Furthermore, the system integrated with third party feeding systems to optimize feeding efficiency, improve productivity, and ensure consistent feeding practices across multiple pens. This functionality was enabled by a robust autonomous winch, which allowed the Tidal camera to follow fish throughout the pen and collect thousands of images daily to provide unprecedented insights and better manage feeding control.
A Win for Both Climate and Cost
Feeding optimization in fish farming is crucial for two reasons: First, fish feed represents the single largest operational cost for salmon farmers, often exceeding 50% of total expenses and potentially reaching upwards of 60% due to fluctuating ingredient costs. Second, fish feed is often the largest contributor to climate footprint for aquaculture companies in a full life cycle assessment. The production of feed ingredients, especially fishmeal and soy, is resource-intensive, and can contribute to overfishing, deforestation, and increased greenhouse gas emissions. Feed ingredients are often sourced globally, leading to significant transportation distances and associated emissions. Finally, uneaten feed and fish waste contribute to nutrient pollution in the water, which can lead to oxygen depletion and other environmental problems. In short, much like individuals and communities prioritize both saving money on electricity and promoting energy efficiency to improve sustainability, reducing feed waste and promoting feed efficiency could have profound impacts on cost savings and prevent environmental degradation.
The Journey to Autonomous Feeding
Initially, Tidal aimed to create a universal autonomous feeding solution, but soon realized the complexity of diverse feeding strategies. Over multiple tests in the field, the team discovered the nuances that depended on the feeder, the company, and the region-specific environment. Tidal recognized the need for flexibility and a stepwise approach to behavior change, allowing farmers to become more comfortable with the idea of handing over feeding to a smart camera system; they wanted the option for taking control when desired. Through this process, Tidal developed flexibility for farmers to allow them to give as little, or much, ownership as they wanted to the autonomous feeding system. Behavior change can be challenging, so allowing this flexibility has helped farmers build confidence in a new system until they are ready to let it fully manage feeding operations.
After years of development, Tidal has introduced an advanced autonomous feeding control system for salmon aquaculture companies, empowering farmers with tools to optimize feeding processes. The system uses real-time data to make adjustments, ensuring fish are fed efficiently based on their behavior and environmental conditions. With centralized monitoring, farmers get a complete view of operations across all pens, supported by customizable settings that align with their feeding strategies. The platform also offers data-driven insights to help farmers refine feeding practices and improve productivity. Farmers always have the option to intervene and manually control feeding whenever needed.
Creating Space for Critical Thinking
While every farmer starts from a different baseline, the adoption of autonomous feeding control offers several benefits for salmon farmers. Through implementing consistent feeding practices via the Tidal system, feed managers can ensure consistent feeding strategy implementation across multiple pens, or conversely, intentionally test various different feeding strategies or novel feed types to evaluate multiple practices and ingredients. Connected to Tidal’s real time biomass estimation and feed conversion ratio detection, quicker iterations have become far more accessible to feeding experts.
In addition, smart automation of feeding tasks allows feeders to expand the number of pens they monitor and frees up valuable time for other essential tasks. While some make jokes or feel a degree of fear of AI taking over jobs, we have seen time and time again that rather than replacing people, leveraging new technologies that provide more insights and autonomy serves to create more opportunities. Without needing to focus on execution alone, employees have more space to direct time and energy to critical, strategic, and creative thinking.
Conclusion
Autonomous feeding control represents a significant advancement in salmon aquaculture. By optimizing feeding efficiency, improving productivity, and ensuring consistent feeding practices, this technology empowers farmers to enhance the sustainability and profitability of their operations. As the industry continues to evolve, the adoption of autonomous feeding control will be crucial for meeting the growing global demand for salmon responsibly and efficiently.
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