Objectives:

FISHFARM aims to create sustainable scientific curriculum for fish culture and cage rearing operations towards solving persistent problems in aquaculture.The project overall goal is to develop a new curriculum for fish farmers who are producing fish in the sea and freshwater in Europe, collecting all the last information and research as is done on the last developments aiming at finding solutions to recently emerged problems with fishes.  It will also teach the EU legislations related to fish farming to fish farmers in EU new  member and pre-accession states in Europe. The project will create innovative training resources through transfer of innovation of Ostrich and Sheepskills training resources, their update and further development according to the needs of target groups.  Specific attention will be paid to quality and attractiveness of these resources and training methods. This will be also evaluated through the pilot training.

 The objectives set to realise this goal are a series of guided activities leading to collect the best available information regarding:

• Water ecosystem,
• Water quality, quantity and filtration,
• Fish farming methods, equipments,
• Brood stock management,
• Larval culture and  nutrition,
  
• Larval stage and fish diseases,
• Sanitation and biosecurity,
• Feeding and feed additives,
• Contaminants  (PCBs, dioxin, heavy metals, drugs),
• Applying HACCP for fish farming to product safety,
• Good practices in fish farming,
• Responsibilities of fish farmers for EU legislations,
• Economic aspects of fish farm in Europe,
• Contributions to sustainable agricultural production,
• Guidelines for beneficients and trainers in vocational and continuing education centers (public and private),
• Best practice models in partner countries, develop these in a training program for fish farmers.

 Target Groups:

• Staff in fish farming and fisheries,
• Staff of fisheries’ associations, cooperatives-members,
• Fish feed manufacturers,
• Fish nutritionists,
• Equipment manufacturers for cage fish farming,
• Teachers and trainers from vocational and continuing  education centers on fisheries,
• Labor employment agencies and VET systems,
• People who wants to be a fish farmer,
• and other related  public and private stakeholders in  regional development.

 Outputs:

• The European FISHFARM portal with integrated training modules into the e-learning,
• Handbook on European FISHFARM with DVD/Zip-Stick,
• Need analyses and consultation reports,
• Dissemination materials and conferences.

 Work Packages:

• WP1:Management and coordination of activities
• WP2:Quality Management Plan
• WP3:Dissemination
• WP4:Development 1: Need analysis and  definition
• WP5:Development 2: Development of  portal, adaptations, localizations, production of  further resource
• WP6:Development3:Validations,  demonstrations and  adaptation
• WP 7:Exploitation