USSEC recently conducted the Regional Animal Production Course (RAPCO) for shrimp and fish production at Auburn University in Alabama.  Consultants Belinda Pignotti and Jairo Amezquita organized and conducted this event, which was attended by a team of 40 representatives of shrimp and fish producers who are users of U.S. soybean products from Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico and the U.S.  The course was given by experts from Auburn and included recognized speakers from the field of global aquaculture.  The speakers lectured about the technology of formulation and nutrition aspects; aqua feed management; uses of soybean products in aqua feeds; water quality; feed pelleting and extrusion; shrimp health; bioflock management; shrimp, freshwater and marine fish production techniques; certifications; and seafood market analysis.  The course’s program also included a Lean Manufacturing workshop conducted by an Auburn University expert that consisted in presenting and developing exercises on business control strategies using a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis.
Participants found the RAPCO course to be interesting and useful, with many attendees expressing their intentions to implement changes and improvements in their processes and operations.  The companies represented in this course produce more than 800,000 metric tons (MT) of aquaculture products per year, representing a potential use of more than 400,000 MT per year of U.S. soybean products.  The implementation of new technologies for the aquaculture industry presented at the course will improve the quality of these companies’ products and lower their production costs.