Aquaculture America 2020

By Vaughn Entwistle, Managing Editor, International Aquafeed

This year’s Aquaculture America event boasted one of the most looked-forward to venues in recent times, as it took place in Honolulu, Hawaii. Small wonder then, that attendance at this year’s show was so high, with over 150 booths and in excess of 2,000 attendees.

As John Cooksey, WAS (World Aquaculture Society) conference manager explained, “the attendance was higher than we expected. Being this far out in the Pacific Ocean probably limited some US participation, but then we picked up a lot more attendees from the Asia Pacific region. In the past we never had any attendees from the Pacific islands. This year we had more than 100. And we had attendees from over 95 countries, including several African countries.”
 

The choice of Hawaii for the event was especially apt, given the Aloha state’s long tradition of aquaculture, which can be traced back more than 1,500 years. This venue of choice was the Hawaiian Convention Center, which in 2019 was voted the best convention centre in the world.

When they weren’t touring the booths, show-goers had over 15 technical conferences to choose from. And as is traditional at WAS events, students of aquaculture received special attention with student receptions, student awards and even a student field trip to the Kualoa Ranch Aquaculture Facilities.

The 150-plus show booths exhibited a nice mix of nutrition and technology companies that virtually covered the gamut of aquaculture disciplines. (To watch a video walk through of the event on IAF TV, point your browser at our website: https://aquafeed.co.uk.)

International Aquafeed visited with many exhibitors and discussed emerging trends in the aquaculture industry. While there were many hot topics addressed at the event, globalism, sustainability and innovation were common themes.

Read more, HERE.

The Aquaculturists

---