Rodrigo Prado, a civil engineer and director of USonic Ltda. in Puerto Montt, Chile, is the recipient of the Global Aquaculture Alliance’s Preferred Freezer Services Global Aquaculture Innovation & Leadership Award. The winner was announced on October 9, during the second day of the GAA’s GOAL 2014 conference in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
USonic’s innovation involves the use of ultrasound to control Chilean sea lice (Caligus rogercresseyi) infestations. In numerous trials, the company showed that the application of ultrasound underwater, directly in fish pens, has a lethal effect on juvenile stages of the lice growth. Concurrently, the application of ultrasound has no effect on salmon or marine mammals due to the low power and frequencies used – only 20 KHz per transmitter.
USonic was established to help Chile’s farmed salmon industry control harmful organisms – including sea lice larvae, microalgae and fouling – in the water column. The company was co-financed by the Chilean National Agency of Economic Development (CORFO). The technology and its specific applications are in the process of being patented in Chile and other countries.
The panel of judges applauded USonic’s innovation because it offers a much needed solution for an industry-wide problem.
Accepting the award and giving a presentation on the winner’s behalf was Constanza Alvial, who works with Prado. Alvial was introduced by Dan Didonato, vice president of sales and marketing at Chatham, New Jersey, USA-headquartered Preferred Freezer Services (which operates cold storage warehouses in Vietnam and China as well as in the United States), and GAA President George Chamberlain, who presented her with a plaque and a $1,000 cash prize.
This is the second time that GAA has offered the prize, which is designed to recognize innovative practices that overcome production challenges or mitigate negative environmental or social impacts at aquaculture farms. This year leadership was taken into account as a criterion for the award, to coincide with the GOAL 2014 theme, “Celebrating Leadership.”
All types of innovations qualified for the competition, including wetlands conservation, feed management, water quality management, effluent reduction, energy reduction, staff training, community relations, animal welfare, and health and nutrition.
The four judges were GAA President Chamberlain; Best Aquaculture Practices Standards (BAP) Coordinator Dan Lee; Michael Tlusty, director of research at the New England Aquarium; and Dawn Purchase, senior aquaculture officer at the Marine Conservation Society. Chamberlain, Tlusty and Purchase are also members of the BAP Standards Oversight Committee.
Amir Sagi, Ph.D., a professor at Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Israel, was the winner of last year’s inaugural Novus International Global Aquaculture Innovation Award. Dr. Sagi’s innovation involves a novel biotechnology application to produce all-male populations of the giant freshwater prawn, Macrobrachium rosenbergii, through temporal RNA interference.
About GAA 
Headquartered in Saint Louis, Missouri, USA, the Global Aquaculture Alliance is an international, non-profit trade association whose Best Aquaculture Practices program provides comprehensive, metrics-based certification for aquaculture facilities – including farms, hatcheries, feed mills and processing plants.
