Smart Aqua

Seafood consulting firm Smart Aqua has been a long-term partner and investor in A-Culture’s mission to reinvent land-based aquaculture. Managing Director Alastair Smart said it was exciting to be involved in a sustainability focused project like this in Australia that essentially utilises ‘waste’ saline water from the Murray River to grow high quality seafood.

“While Australia has a long coastline, there are few suitable sites for aquaculture and inland water is a precious commodity,” he said. “It is only a matter of time before we see more land-based aquaculture operations like the innovative A-Culture project developing in Australia, similar to what we see exploding all over the world.”

Smart Aqua say the growth in land-based aquaculture is partly a result of supply chain challenges from the COVID pandemic but also a desire for locally grown healthy, safe, and sustainable high-quality seafood. Smart Aqua has more than 26 years working globally with sea and land-based aquaculture projects and is also working with Wiley, another well-known Australian company, designing and project managing Recirculating Aquaculture Systems (RAS) systems and Processing Operations for clients like Pure Salmon that are developing 10 and 20,000 ton per annum farms.

Alistair said the A-Culture partnership with CH4 Global and the integration of the emissions busting seaweed Asparagopsis into the project is extremely important to help reduce cattle methane production.

“Australia is a huge cattle producer and my family are some of the largest producers. If we don’t significantly manage methane outputs from beef production and the resultant impacts on climate change, then the impact of producing sustainable seafood protein becomes unimportant. It is very heartening to see Australia leading the way with concerted efforts from CSIRO and commercial enterprises to produce large quantities of this important algae.”