Aquamet: Innovative Approach for Sustainable Aquaculture
The Ghanian start-up Aquamet provides a sustainable and affordable solution to maximize fish farmers´ yield.
Aquamet developed a device to measure water quality parameters crucial to aquaculture and an accompanying app to assist fish farmers in their daily tasks to ensure the best water quality at all times. For their innovative approach to minimize loss of fish and thus reducing the carbon footprint, while also having a positive social impact, Aquamet has been selected as ISC3 Innovation Challenge 2023 Finalist and the ISC3 Start-up of the Month for October 2023.
Aquamet´s solution is a solar-powered smart probe that measures critical water quality parameters, interprets the data and matches it with recommendations if there's a threshold abnormality. The farmer is then informed via SMS to take management action. The water quality – which is the biggest indicator of pond and fish health – can be monitored directly on a mobile app.
This combination of 24/7 monitoring in real time and an app that contains farming tools such as a feeding estimator, record keeping and real-time advisory with experts is the first of it´s kind in Ghana. Aquamet´s approach to improving fish farmers yield using their technology seeks directly to improve the country´s food security and reduces carbon footprint of fish losses during production.
Furthermore, to increase the accessibility of the product, farmers can choose between a monetary payment or a payment in an equivalent of fish. For that the start-up partners with “Maku foods” which is a youth led start-up company focusing on marketing and processing of fish, to sell the fish that was collected as payment. These factors not only create a positive impact for the farmers, but also contribute to stabilizing the food security and availability. The social impact also lies in their customer service: constant communication and local visits to the farms are important to the start-up. Moreover, Aquamet offers trainings to farmers and the youth as potential farmers on the topic of biosecurity measures and good practices.
The whole success story of the ISC3 Start-up of the Month in October 2023 is currently told by the ISC3 on its website.
Three questions for Frank Owusu, co-founder & CEO of Aquamet
What led to your solution in Sustainable Chemistry?
Frank Owusu: Ghanaians and most Africans depends on fish for over 72% as their protein source. Unfortunately, 65% of this is imported into the country each year, which weakens our food system and contributes significantly to malnutrition because fish is both expensive and difficult to obtain. Although the aquaculture sector has the potential to offset the fish deficit gap, farmers record high loses during production making the sector unsustainable. Our approach to improving fish farmers yield using our technology seeks directly to improve food security and reduces carbon footprint of fish losses during production.
What does being chosen as ISC3 Start-up of the Month mean to you?
F. Owusu: Being selected as the Start-up of the Month is a great opportunity for us and we are very
excited to know that our story and product is being globally promoted by the ISC3. With the ISC3 and a wider range of partners and audience, we are committed to paving the way towards sustainable aquaculture and food security in sub-Saharan Africa, starting from Ghana.
What’s next up at Aquamet?
F. Owusu: Next plan is to provide our solution to at least 70% of Ghanaian farmers and to expand into new markets, e.g. Nigeria, Gambia, Cameroon and Kenya, by the end of 2024 and scale.
