Production modelling; A tool to estimate the effects of sea lice treatment methods

Production modelling; A tool to estimate the effects of sea lice treatment methods.

Following the recent interesting finding published, albeit not yet peer-reviewed thesis from Cecilie Sviland Walde at the Norwegian Veterinary Institute focusing on the biological and economic impact of delousing farmed Atlantic salmon in Norway.  Cecilie’s thesis confirms many of our understandings of the differences between treatment methods, for example the massive economic benefit of preventing the need for a 4^th thermal treatment (Sviland Walde et al. 2023).

We caught up with Hans Berg Nåvik, Product Analytics Manager who has been working on production modelling as a tool to estimate the effects of sea lice treatment methods.

• It has been over a year since you joined Benchmark, tell us about what your role focuses on now? And where do you see it growing over the next year?

I still can’t believe it has been over year since I joined Benchmark – the time has flown by! I’ve been involved in some fantastic projects and even had a change in job title to better reflect what my role involves. At Benchmark we continue to develop and fine-tune our product portfolio for our customers, and my role is to support our teams with data-driven analytics to develop and maintain our strategic goals and make sure these are progressing.

Over the last year, I have been working with the team to explore production modelling as a tool to estimate the short- and long-term effects of different sea lice treatment methods. This is especially complex when working in a biological field, as it’s not only the market that changes, but different animal pathogens emerge, change, and adapt, and our products need to reflect this. We are currently exploring production modelling as a tool to estimate the downstream effects of different treatment methods and vaccines.

As I look ahead to the next year, I think there will continue to be increased collaboration within the Benchmark team, as I work closer with my colleagues in Salmon

• It sounds like this modelling could provide some very useful insights. What is the value of modelling the downstream impacts of different treatment methods?

There is a range of fascinating learnings from the modelling work that we and our customers can draw advantages from. These include improved longer-term planning of treatment operations and understanding of direct and downstream effects on productions from different treatment strategies. The goal of this work is to ultimately improve the fish health and welfare status in the industry. A case study of a few examples is available. A place for more focus on long-term planning. All treatment choices have long-term effects on lice development, mortality and fish growth – which ultimately influence profitability all the way to the end of the production cycle. If area co-operation and co-ordination allows, then the benefits of long-term planning could be vast, for example reducing the needed number of treatments, in the production cycle. The modelling work we have done highlights the drivers behind some of these benefits. The perceived downstream effect of a treatment choice diminishes with time, as the producers always need to focus on the current situation and constantly plan for the future. This doesn’t mean the effects aren’t there, and I think the modelling work we do now can help provide insight into these aftereffects. Each production locality has its own profile that is completely unique and our model accounts for this variability. Modelling the profile for temperature and lice pressure makes it possible to see the long and short-term effects of a treatment choice. We believe this will be vital for customers looking to optimise their treatment planning for fish health and improve the sustainability of the sector. 

• Can we reduce the cost of production by adding value to fish welfare?

Yes, however these are often hard to quantify. The impact of fish welfare is almost solely responsible for a positive impact on production and, ultimately, the profitability of customer operations, apart from market developments. This is seen in multiple metrics including reduced growth from wounds and other stressors, for example from harsh handling during treatments, leading to downgrades in quality, which in turn reduces price achievement. It can also be shown through wasted feed and smolt investments on fish that do not survive until harvest, leading to lost investment in smolts and feed.