USSEC conducted its aquaculture and nutrition statistical modeling workshop” in Pattaya, Thailand October 17 – 19. The goal of this short course aimed for participants to develop an appreciation for the value of modeling and simulations in the context of aquaculture production and feeding management and nutrition R&D activities; review some principles, concepts and techniques to develop models and data analysis methods relevant to aquaculture; and acquire the basic skills and know-how required to be able to develop practical models and run simulations.
The three-day short course provided participants with a practical, hand-on, introduction to mathematical modeling that could be applied to aquaculture production. It consisted of lectures, tutorials, and assignments and provided participants with basic skills that helped them to develop production and feeding management tools for aquaculture operations and skills to audit the quality of data collected as part of R&D or farm surveys and develop effective tools and benchmarks suited to their needs.
The ten participants, from seven Philippine aqua feedmills and aquaculture companies were requested to bring their own or their company’s experimental or commercial aquaculture production dataset that they will analyze as part of exercises and assignments.
The course was divided into six modules:

The three day short course was facilitated by Dr. Dominique P. Bureau, Professor, Dept. of Animal Biosciences University of Guelph, Canada; Dr. Chunfang Wang, Associate Professor, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, China; and J. Owen Skipper-Horton, Head of Aquaculture, John O’ Foods, Wheatley, Ontario, Canada.
The sixteen participants from different feedmills and aquaculture companies from the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Thailand at the USSEC Aquaculture Nutrition Statistical Modeling Workshop appreciated what they learned. This is a great help to them in R&D efforts to improve their production efficiency in grow-out and also in feed formulations and feed production. The hands-on exercise during the workshop helped them to learn and understand the practical mathematical modeling applied to aquaculture production and aquafeed formulation and aqua feedmill production. This will help aid aqua feed formulators better understand the nutritive value and better amino acid profile of U.S. soybean meal and create preference for U.S. soybean meal in their soybean meal purchases.