The Latin American governments have recently expressed rapidly-growing interest in making more effective use of the Regional Centre's assistance for the acceleration of aquaculture development in their own countries. Recognizing the mandate of the Centre, as well as the support given to the Centre as a regional institution by the participating governments, the following recommendations are given for its operation and activities. These recommendations, if implemented, should enhance the Centre's competence and capability, as well as strengthen and support it during the establishment of linkages with national centres of other countries of the Region and in the host country.
The host government should evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of declaring the Centre a legally-recognized regional institution. Assuming that the host government is interested in continuing the operation of the Centre as a regional institution, it is also recommended that the host government consult with other participating governments of the Region regarding their opinions on the legal recognition of the Centre.
In the Project Document of project RLA/076/010 the possibility was mentioned that the host government declare the Centre autonomous for administrative, technical and financial purposes within SUDEPE. An evaluation is recommended to determine if it would be feasible and convenient for the host government to designate the Centre as an autonomous institution.
The Centre or the host government should formulate a development plan covering the period of ten years from 1985 through 1995. The plan should aid the Centre and subcentres to organize their programme and determine strategies for developing objectives and conducting regional activities for that period. The plan should include the Centre's requirements for personnel, including the scientific, training, adminstrative and other human resources; funding, including annual operational expenses; physical facilities; equipment priorities for research, training and information; and the level of participation, contribution or involvement, including managerial, financial, research, technical, training, in-kind contributions of other participating governments in the operation and management of the Centre's regional activities. Finally, the plan should contain a coordinated and integrated scheme, including a timetable for the conceived period of time.
It has become evident that for the Centre in Pirassununga and its subcentres at Serra da Bocaina and Cananéia to continue operations as a regional institution greater involvement and active participation of the other participating governments might be necessary. Discussions on this issue as well as other matters pertaining to the Centre should be given top priority at meetings of the Centre's Advisory Committee and at other Regional fora where the host government is formally represented.
The Centre should provide the training programme with a greater access to and flexible use of the Centre's laboratories, library, ponds, equipment, supplies and personnel. Now that the principal research and training installations of the Centre have been completed and in view of increased demand for the senior-level training course, such action will promote greater integration and cooperation between the research, training and other Centre activities.
Furthermore, it will enable the training programme to offer more intensive and complete training in many areas, i.e., aquaculture engineering, nutrition and feeding of fishes, reproductive physiology, limnology, water quality, biological productivity, pathology and pond management, as well as to expose students to a complete aquaculture production cycle.
The appointment of an assistant instructor is highly recommended to aid in planning, organizing and implementing the training course, including teaching. The need for an additional instructor to assist the training staff and consultants became evident from the experience of offering senior-level courses at the Centre.
It is recommended that the Centre intensify efforts to make the degree Master of Aquaculture available to its trainees, preferably as a requirement and based on the Centre's one-year senior-level training course. This recommendation was also made by a number of delegates of the participating governments, who attended the first and second ADVCOM meeting and the third and fourth COPESCAL meeting.
It is strongly recommended that the Centre continue to use the guidelines stated in the ‘Outline of an applied research and experimental development programme for the Latin American Regional Centre for Aquaculture’ (Appendix 4, Document 2). Likewise, it should also consider the recommendations of the Centre's Advisory Committee, as outlined in the ADVCOM's first and second meetings. Furthermore, the Centre should maintain consistency in its research programme, which must be based on short, intermediate and long-term planning. The programme should form an integral part of the development plan recommended for the Centre in Section 3.2.
It is recommended that the Centre upgrade research and management personnel by intensifying planned development of in-house and external training. This should be achieved by structuring a programme which takes into account various levels of competence, i.e., junior and mediumlevel technicians, junior and senior-level aquaculturists.
A training schedule might be drafted in which each staff researcher is given the opportunity to work towards, minimally, a Master's degree in aquaculture. A selection committee should choose the qualifying candidates, and the level of training should be determined by the Centre's personnel requirements at the various levels of expertise.
Additionally, the Centre's one-year senior-level training course should be used more fully to build the capacity of the Centre's aquaculture staff, until all Centre staff have participated in the course.
Furthermore, it is recommended that at least 20 percent of the Centre's personnel be permitted to undertake training (including post-graduate studies) each year; while 80 percent of the research staff should be permitted to undertake in-house training within a reasonable amount of time.
As the Centre is expanding its research activities, the creation of the position of research manager is recommended. This manager should be responsible for planning, organizing, supervising and participating in the research programme, in close coordination with the international staff stationed at the Centre as part of international technical assistance projects, and with the training and administrative staff.
The appointment of a pond farm manager is strongly urged. Although the research, production and training activities at the Centre's pond farm have developed reasonably well in the past, the anticipated increase in those activities supports the idea of such an appointment.
The pond farm manager would have the primary responsibility of supporting the Centre's research and training activities by ensuring that the pond farm facilities (ponds, tanks, transporters, nets, vehicles, aerators, buckets, chemicals and fertilizers) are always available and in good working condition. The manager would also be responsible for the upkeep, repair and preventive maintenance of facilities, materials and supplies. Although supporting the research and training efforts of the Centre's and international staff, the manager should not be expected to conduct research. The farm pond manager also should assist the research manager and the training coordinator in maintaining and enhancing a positive and productive working atmosphere. He should promote greater communication among researchers and between researchers and other Centre personnel, particularly training and administrative staff.
The development of research or aquaculture staff-exchange programmes are vigorously recommended. Those programmes might be arranged with local institutions and with external institutions from other countries, including national and regional centres. This type of exchange would facilitate the sharing of knowledge and ideas and allow for greater exposure of Centre staff to other personnel and experience.
Recognizing the importance of having a working aquaculture information system, it is recommended that the Centre vigorously promote the collection, compilation and dissemination of aquaculture information, especially the unconventional.
Until its computer system has become fully operational, the Centre's aquaculture information system will depend partly on the global computerized Aquaculture Information System (AQUIS) developed and organized by ADCP. Governments and other legitimate users are urged to use and contribute conventional data and unpublished reports to AQUIS at the Regional Centre, which can use the ADCP system to obtain the entire global information available within that system on any particular aspect of aquaculture. The governments, the aquaculture sector, aquaculturists, the private sector and potential investors can benefit from such an arrangement.
The Centre should continue its production and distribution of the Information Bulletin.
Most of the basic and some of the more specialized equipment needed by the Centre have been progressively purchased at a considerable cost. In spite of the equipment's durability, its effectiveness and proper functioning depend on careful handling by users and on preventive maintenance.
The Centre should consider the possibility of offering a short orientation course on instrumentation. The course should cover the various types of basic equipment available for use at the Centre, including the principles underlining its operation and functioning, its routine servicing and preventive maintenance, troubleshooting techniques and proper storage conditions.
The government cooperative project RLA/075/ITA might assist the host government to implement some of the previously cited recommendations. A financing prospectus should be prepared and presented to financial institutions and potential multibilateral and bilateral donors, to ensure the financial stability of the Centre on a long-term basis beyond the year 1988.
The increased attention given to aquaculture development on a worldwide basis in recent years has promoted most Latin American governments to look more intensely for ways of accelerating such development in the Region. Their support for the Regional Centre is evidence of their commitment. Among the justifications for this decision are the needs to diversify the work alternatives of rural people, to produce more fish for local consumption and to increase opportunities for earning foreign exchange.
The total production of fish, molluscs and crustacea in Latin America from aquaculture for 1983 was estimated at 80 000 tonnes (t), compared with estimates of 70 000 and 75 000 t in 1975 and 1980, respectively. Although the increased production is modest when viewed alongside the production from capture fisheries in the Region, the increment since 1975 is significant and justifies the belief that the potential is substantial for development through aquaculture. Project RLA/075/ITA ‘Support to the Regional aquaculture activities for Latin America and the Caribbean’ provides a mechanism by which the countries could obtain assistance for advancing such development.
The observations and recommendations that follow concern possible actions by the governments of the Region. They are mainly based on the findings of regional activities carried out by the project from October 1977 to February 1985, including the findings of missions to most countries of the region and a study tour to five countries visited by project staff; meetings, conferences, symposiums, and consultations with government officials and fish farmers; meetings with local consultants and specialists who participated in the three training courses of CERLA; discussions with executives of donor agencies and representatives of the private sector.
The recommendations are also in line with those made to FAO at various fora, such as the third session of the Commission of Inland Fisheries for Latin America (COPESCAL) held from 30 November to 6 December 1983; the first and second meeting of the Advisory Committee of the regional project RLA/76/010; and foremost, in harmony with Resolution No. 1, endorsed by the FAO World Conference on Fisheries Management and Development held in Rome, 19–23 March 1984, and later adopted as Resolution No. 39/225 by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 18 December 1984.
Participating countries will benefit most from the Centre's findings if the governments put into practice feasible National Aquaculture Development Plans (NADPs). Properly implemented plans should permit the rapid transfer of technologies of proven aquaculture of farming systems to countries of the Region, thereby accelerating the development of aquaculture. Appendix 3 contains general guidelines for the preparation of an aquaculture development plan.
In Brazil, and perhaps in other participating countries, it is further recommended that Aquaculture Development Plans (ADPs) be organized, prepared and formulated on a state-by-state basis in coordination with, and with the endorsement of, the national governments. Subsequently, the states, ADPs should be integrated, whenever feasible, to form a national aquaculture development plan.
In the planning, preparation and implementation of state and national plans, the countries may be able to utilize the personnel who have graduated from CERLA's one-year training course for senior aquaculturists.
Governments are further urged to give aquaculture development a high priority by incorporating the NADPs in their national economic development policies. For this to happen, the plans need to be realistic; timetables for carrying out the activities and objectives of the plans should be prepared, and these must be accompanied by realistic, estimated annual budget schemes initially covering periods of three to five years.
Governments may require some sort of supplemental financing to implement the principal objectives of their NADPs. Therefore, it is recommended that they carefully consider the types of available financial support for aquaculture development from the IDB, the World Bank, potential donor governments, and other multilateral, bilateral and multibilateral financing institutions or agencies.
An aquaculture lead agency should be created or designated to coordinate aquaculture development in each country that gives a high priority to aquaculture development. The lead agency would coordinate the nation's human and financial resources for the expansion of the aquaculture sector, ensuring that states' resources for aquaculture are used to attain the greatest effectiveness for the least cost within the shortest possible time. The responsibilities of the lead agency, in general terms, should also include programme management, support services and species development.
The project's present stage of development includes the upgrading or establishing of national centres in selected countries for linkage with the Regional Centre and with other centres of the global network of regional centres. Therefore, it is recommended that appropriate linkages be established as early as possible between selected national centres and the regional network to ensure an effective and rapid transfer of research results at the country level, local testing and adaptation, training of personnel and dissemination of results to farmers. Such linkages are also needed to ensure that problems at the farm level are referred back to researchers.
To facilitate such linkages, governments should provide necessary support to their own institutions, including extension services. The Latin American Regional Aquaculture Centre will continue to develop appropriate aquaculture systems for implementation by the rural populations of the countries of the Region.
Selected technologies will need to be tested or adapted at selected national centres, and adjusted to national or local conditions or to similar conditions in neighbouring countries. After such technology has been tested and proven effective locally, the Regional Centre should provide requested guidance and assistance in formulating viable aquaculture investment projects.
The Governments of the Region are urged to increase the rate of placement of graduates from CERLA's training course in positions where they can most effectively facilitate the testing and implementation of feasible aquaculture systems and technologies within the shortest time possible.
Most of the graduates of senior-level courses return to their countries of origin expecting to fill aquaculture-related work positions. The multiplier effect that these graduates should have in enhancing aquaculture development in the countries of the Region cannot be overemphasized, especially in countries where there is a dire need for trained aquaculture personnel. These senior-level personnel can assist their governments to adopt or transfer technologies for testing at the local or national level, formulate feasibility and pilot-scale projects, and prepare and evaluate investment projects.
