El Rosario, S.A.
The tilapia industry in Ecuador developed out of an urgent need to find a solution to the White Spot Syndrome Virus (WSSV) that had devastated its shrimp farming industry.
Prior to our involvement, our client was practicing polyculture of tilapia and shrimp, stocking 115-150 gram tilapia with Litopenaeus vannamei at 0.2 and 11 per meter square respectively during final growout. While the practice netted some improvement in shrimp survival (3-4%), it was still not providing a completely satisfactory or economically viable solution to the crisis.
AquaSol was contracted by El Rosario to improve and advance the technical and commercial development of its tilapia farming operations.
AquaSol developed a strategic aquaculture development plan to convert two of the largest vertically integrated shrimp farming operations in Ecuador to commerecial tilapia farming operations. One of these farms was El Rosario. Together, these two farms covered more than 4,000 hectares of shrimp farming area.
Recommendations were given on tilapia hatchery production, tilapia growout production, fish feed quality, and the design and develpoment of a tilapia processing plant.
The strategic reorganizational plan was successfully implemented under the guidance of a former associate of AquaSol and the operations eventually developed into two of the largest tilapia producers in Latin America.
