The Aquaculture Advisory Council Working Group on Finfish seeks a consultant to develop a guidance document on Fish Health Management to the attention of fish farmers in the light of climate change.
Background
The strategic guidelines for a more sustainable and competitive EU aquaculture foresee a series of tasks to be fulfilled by the Aquaculture Advisory Council (AAC) among which, the development of codes of good practice on the management of aquatic diseases that are not listed in Regulation (EU) 2016/429 and or in related Delegated Acts or Implementing Acts, and ensuring that EU aquaculture producers are informed about relevant research and innovation on animal-health and public-health matters.
Objectives and outputs
This report aims to provide insight and advice to the European Commission, to the Member States and to European aquaculture stakeholders on a guidance document on Fish Health Management to be developed to the attention of fish farmers. This document must take particular attention at the challenges posed to the professionals by climate change and the evolution of the legal framework in the recent years. This report’s findings will be used to produce an AAC recommendation on the development of codes of good practice on the management of aquatic diseases.
This work will therefore analyse and deliver on the following issues:
1/ Review of EU legislation (common baseline without a specific description by species) and of previous literature on this matter – including the AAC report on “European Aquaculture: Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation”. Develop a focus on the legislation’s implementation in some key member states.
2/ Map prevention measures in place (single or combination of them) and explore potential and new ones.
3/ Develop case studies defining basic procedures for specific applications related to different species, methods of farming, etc.
4/ Reflect upon how these guidelines can respond to the new challenges (One Health approach, Climate Change, NGOs requirements,) + Commission’s policies (F2F strategy, Biodiversity, AMR strategy…)
The guidance document should also:
- List emergency protocols emergency contacts and protocols to notify and apply in case of suspicion or confirmation of new emergencies/ diseases
- Define the criteria to determine whether a producer is confronted to a new disease or not and consequent procedures to follow
5/ Develop a FAQ with the producers’ questions
Organisation
This work will be commissioned by the AAC to an external expert. The selected expert/organization will report directly to the AAC Fish Health Focus Group and to the AAC Working Group 1 (finfish), and involve the Federation of Veterinarians of Europe (FVE) and/or the Federation of European Aquaculture Producers (FEAP) in its work. The expert/organisation must have a veterinarian background. The expert needs to have sufficient knowledge about the difficulties faced by practitioners in the implementation of the new Animal Health Law.
Deliverables and timeline
| 30-11-22 | Deadline for applications |
| 15-12-22 | WG1 Chair & Vice-Chair + secretariat will conduct the selection of a candidate to be approved by the Focus Group |
| 15-01-22 | AAC approves and signs the contract |
| 31/01-01/02 | Expert to present the timeline of his/her work at the WG meeting |
| February-April | Expert gathers information and analyse data |
| 01-05-22 | Draft report sent to Focal Group for comments |
| 15-05-22 | Consolidated version of the report send to WG1 |
| 30-31/05 | WG1 approves report |
Budget
The work will be carried out, between 1st of November 2022 until 31st of May 2023 and will cost a total of 8,000 EUR VAT included.
If interested, please send your CV in English to the AAC Secretariat by 30 November 2022: secretariat@aac-europe.org