CESAM participated in the Atlantic Aquaculture Forum, organised by the AIR Centre and held on 12–13 November 2025 at TERINOV, on Terceira Island, Azores. The event brought together policymakers, scientists and industry representatives to discuss pathways for sustainable growth in aquaculture across the Atlantic.
Rui Rocha, CESAM researcher and professor at the Department of Biology, as well as Vice-President of S2Aqua CoLAB, was one of the invited keynote speakers. He delivered the lecture “Community-Based Aquaculture: Utopia or a Sustainable Development Pathway?”, in which he argued that many community-based initiatives fail due to structural reasons—namely because they focus on the use of funding rather than on markets, lack accountability within collective ownership models, suffer from misaligned incentives, and rely on training activities without proper follow-up.
As an alternative to traditional community models, he proposed direct financing and technical support for producers already established on the ground; investment in feed mills, cold chains, processing and marketing infrastructure rather than limiting action to the construction of tanks; and the professionalisation of training, equipping the sector with aquaculture technicians with practical experience and replacing one-off workshops with consistent capacity-building. He further advocated for the development of private models guided by technical and economic data, where decisions are based on objective metrics rather than dependency on subsidies, and for guaranteeing market access before resorting to financial support. His central message underscored that sustainable aquaculture depends on strong entrepreneurs, qualified technicians, functional value chains, reliable markets, and the rejection of dependency-driven project logics.
Rui Rocha also moderated the panel “Building Foundations for Sustainable Aquaculture Models”, featuring Maria de Lourdes Sardinha (Benguela Current Convention), Delvis Fortes (AU-IBAR – African Union, Inter-African Bureau for Animal Resources), Samba Ká (National Aquaculture Agency of Senegal) and António Onde (Ministry of Fisheries, Angola). The debate focused on governance, policy coherence and the industrial bases required to expand aquaculture production in Portuguese-speaking African countries.
The intervention also highlighted CESAM’s applied work in these countries, including projects on the development of tilapia feed formulations using agricultural by-products not intended for human consumption, and the in situ farming of oysters, both in Cabo Delgado (Mozambique), as well as community-based mussel aquaculture initiatives in Benguela (Angola).
This participation further strengthens CESAM’s role in the aquaculture business sector, as reflected in several co-promoted projects with industry partners, in the coordination of the flagship project ProAqua+ (Development of multifunctional materials for aquaculture biofilters: establishing new standards of quality and sustainability), funded by CENTRO2030 – Regional Programme for the Centre 2021–2027, and in the establishment of the CESAM/Riasearch Chair.