The ocean hosts large number of species that could improve food security, but are currently either not harvested or only marginally utilised. SFI Harvest will develop knowledge and technologies for harvesting and processing of lower-trophic marine species to enable sustainable growth of Norway's biomarine industries. It will draw upon Norway's leading position in the ocean and offshore sectors, bringing together pioneering shipowners,key technology providers, producers of aqua feed and raw materials, SINTEF Ocean and other strong research groups. The centre's industry partners will form an innovation board to speed up the time-to-market of innovations based on the centre's activities.
SFI Harvest integrates six research areas: Survey technology, Ecosystem dynamics, Decision support, Harvesting technology, Product development, and Business models. The main outcomes of the centre activities will be sensor technology for cost-efficient mapping and monitoring of marine pecies, a model predicting good fishing grounds and variability in the ecosystem, decision support allowing fishermen to save fuel and time, predicting catch potential, selective and energy-efficient fishing gears, on-board processing lines for separating the catch by species and preserving quality, rapid catch quality measurement, new land-based feed and food ingredient processes, guidelines for resource allocation and vertical value chain coordination, and a sustainability assessment tool for value chains. They will enable the sustainable harvesting of new marine species and the establishment of a new biomarine value chain. Further, the centre will enable Norway to lead the technological development for the mesopelagic and low-trophic fisheries, creating new global market opportunities for SFI Harvest's industrial partners. The technologies developed will also support cross-over solutions for today's commercial fisheries and for challenges like removing plastic from the oceans.
