Blue Aqua, SAS, Temasek Poly to launch mobile app to boost aquaculture

AQUACULTURE solution provider Blue Aqua International, analytics software company SAS and Temasek Polytechnic's Aquaculture Innovation Centre have banded together to develop an app to boost local production of fish and shrimp.

They will develop a Smart Aquaculture Solution, which will include an AI-driven mobile app powered by the SAS Viya platform, they have announced in a joint statement.

Slated for an August launch in app stores, the initial iteration of the app will enable shrimp and fish farmers to enter data, use real-time data analytics technology to track critical parameters such as water quality, feed management and animal health.

With the app, farmers will receive alerts informing them of potential issues and the appropriate remedies needed. Farmers can also use the dashboards generated from historical data collected to gain insights on the state of their farms.

With their solution, the parties hope to advance the national "30-by-30" master plan, under which Singapore will aim to produce 30 per cent of its nutritional needs by 2030.

Farshad Shishehchian, group president, chief executive and founder of Blue Aqua International, said: "Singapore's aquaculture industry is very young, we have a long way to go. Looking at the '30-by-30' goal, it's not easy to achieve, but not impossible."

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Blue Aqua's own farms - it has four in Singapore - will be the first users of the app.

Singapore-headquartered Blue Aqua, which manufactures shrimp-farming products such as probiotics, minerals and feed additives, has a presence in 13 countries, including Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam.

Dr Farshad said the mobile app will also be rolled out in other parts of the Asia-Pacific.

A farmer by trade himself, he said that the market already has similar aquaculture data-tracking apps, but they are not very effective for Asian farmers.

He said existing apps are developed by IT people who do not have an understanding of what farmers need. Furthermore, they are expensive, and more useful for farmers in Europe or America, where the farming landscape and species of animals, water temperature and other factors are different from those in Asia.

In the statement, Remco den Heijer, Asean vice-president at SAS, said: "Developing AI capabilities is critical to the long-term success of the country's smart-farming programme. Farmers have an amazing opportunity to evolve their methods and adapt to technology solutions that can help them be more efficient and achieve higher yields through smart farming."

The app will support only manual data entry upon its launch, but Dr Farshad indicated that, down the road, it will integrate sensor technology to cater to the high-technology nature of farms in Singapore.

"We have the roadmap, the planning. But this first version will be the foundation."