At Aquaculture UK 2024, Umitron’s Russell Ferguson outlined the company’s ambitions to be a more value-chain-aware technology provider

Farmed blue food production is facing some serious challenges, including but not limited to its response to climate change, the increase in oceanic threats, and farms moving further offshore. There’s also a smaller pool of personnel available to monitor these farms. Consequently, in 2024, more decision making is becoming AI-based.

Speaking at the recent Aquaculture UK 2024 exhibition and conference held in Aviemore, Scotland, Umitron Field Sales Manager – Scotland, Russell Ferguson, insisted that addressing the issues affecting the industry requires innovative solutions. Indeed, he said that Umitron, a Singapore/Japan-based aquaculture technology start-up, was established in 2016 with the aim of its three founders to use satellite and AI technologies in the aquaculture space to help feed the world more efficiently while also minimising environmental impacts.

“We are here to support the development of the industry through the application of advanced technologies and AI, and machine learning, and all delivered with a lot of passion,” Ferguson said.

As such, Umitron has explored the challenges that shaped the industry in the past and the initial technological advancements that laid the groundwork for its development, Ferguson said. He explained that early industry iterations in AI started making significant strides in the latter half of the 20^th century. While these technological advancements were sometimes called “fuzzy logic”, he said hope was given to aquaculture ventures, with the promise of solutions to complex problems being delivered through data analysis and predictive modelling.

Around the same time, the advent of satellites and remote sensing revolutionised the monitoring of larger-scale aquaculture farming operations.