• Continued working with local farmers to streamline their daily practices and data recording, publishing farm-gate price weekly newsletter (which has been acknowledged and adopted by the provincial department of market supervision)
• Continued working with an insurance company to promote the insurance pilot program, covering more than 1000 mu (>60 ha)
• Continued working with hatchery and pharmaceutical companies to disseminate the best practices

Constraints

• Extreme weather and increased feed costs.

All background information is available from the AIP Directory

Participants are listed in the AIP Directory.

Annual work plans are available through the AIP Directory and from the HTSA.

• Continued facilitating the development/customization of wastewater treatment at tilapia farms, especially for small-scale producers, which required collaboration among local farmers, engineers, technicians, and local government offices.
• Continued monitoring of water use and discharge of fishponds and wastewater treatment facilities, to analyze the most effective model/approach to reduce N & P discharged from fishponds to the external environment.
• Advised local government on how to improve regulations and inspections criteria for aquaculture wastewater management.

Constraints

• Extreme weather with unexpected rain and high temperatures disrupting the production of fish, climate impacts more evident to aquaculture and fishery.
• Challenges with government finances affecting the building of wastewater treatment facilities.

• Farm groups have been organized and will coordinate and share a wastewater treatment facility, which will be built by the local government and maintained by the local village. Operational costs will be shared by farmers.
• An upgrade of the existing wastewater treatment facilities was also carried out to enhance farms’ resilience to extreme weather under climate change.
• With the above advances in wastewater treatment facilities, the discharge of nutrients (Nitrogen and Phosphorus) to the external environment will be reduced.
• Pilot farms are trialing new technologies, e.g. introducing other species and algae to improve wastewater treatment and increase the economic return.

• The Hainan government has announced new mandatory standards for aquaculture wastewater discharge. This requires tilapia farms to adopt measures to reduce the N and P discharge. This has led to farmers upgrading their farm facilities. This benefits the aquatic environment but also improves production efficiency due to improved management and the increased use of technology.
• Insurance companies continue to explore how to include more farmers in an insurance services pilot scheme.
• The Alliance is also examining how to improve actions taken on disposing of dead fish, including recycling them via composting to produce fertilizers.

• The government has strengthened the regulations on wastewater discharge management. As a result, many tilapia farmers have adopted the “3-pond and 2-dike” (san chi liang ba) model to treat wastewater from ponds.
• The Alliance assisted the government agency to review and assess the discharge and impacts of tilapia farm wastewater. This helped update the effluent quality standards to be more applicable to the local industry.
• Meanwhile, the Alliance continued organizing workshops to help farmers understand the environmental policies and consequent measures.

Continued working with local farmers to:

• Improve the service of insurance for small-scale farmers;
• Share the farm-gate price and other key information within the Alliance's community;
• Organize the Alliance's board meeting to develop the 2022 workplan - focussing on how to improve discharge management according to the government requirements; and
• Design a plan to encourage farmers to improve plastic recycling.

Constraints

• Increased feed costs; and
• The general state of the economy is discouraging the domestic consumption of seafood.

• Continued working with local farmers to streamline their daily practices and data recording, publishing farm-gate price weekly newsletter (which has been acknowledged and adopted by the provincial department of market supervision)
• Continued working with an insurance company to promote the insurance pilot program, covering more than 1000 mu (>60 ha)
• Continued working with hatchery and pharmaceutical companies to disseminate the best practices

Constraints

• Extreme weather and increased feed costs

• A successful tilapia insurance pilot program has been introduced. It is hoped that this initiative will be expanded and will promote the standardization of farming practices.
• Farmers are learning more about best-farming practices through an online quiz
• Regular water, feed, and fish quality monitoring continues
• An annual board meeting was held resulting in updated farm management protocols

Achievements

A successful tilapia insurance pilot program has been introduced.

Constraints

• The unstable relationship between China and the US is affecting market demand and the price of tilapia
• Unusual weather patterns in early spring impacted production

• The AIP recruited 400 new farmers increasing the total from 120 to 520
• Piloted an insurance program with 12 farms
• Piloted a farming data collection app with 12 farms (including stocking, water quality, harvest, feeding, etc.)
• Introduced 180 remote-controlled devices to monitor the use of pond aerators
• Offered technology support and CoGP training to over 500 farmers

Constraints

• Low farm-gate prices are discouraging farmer’s engagement with the AIP
• Unusual climate and weather patterns, including serious droughts
• Low demand for tilapia within China
• Limited support from local government on infrastructure issues

AIP activities have been undertaken and reported on either quarterly and/or annually since 2015 and are available from the AIP Directory and the HTSA website (HTSA 2014). 

The HTSA contributed toward the development of new and locally appropriate requirements for tilapia pond wastewater discharges.

2016

By 2016, compliance with the first edition of the HTSA CoGP was 100% while the second edition had been applied to 35 pilot farms (HTSA 2016).

The HTSA conducts regular CoGP training for farmers and collaborates with research, government, and commercial organizations including the Pearl River Fisheries Research Institute, insurance companies, and the Hainan High-Quality Aquatic Products Brand Promotion Alliance (HTSA 2019)(HTSA 2019).