The 1993 Fishing Industry National Study (FINS) clearly identified that more cohesive and efficient delivery of the types services now provided under SSA’s umbrella was required to address important areas of market failure in the seafood industry and to help the industry identify and captilise on significant opportunities for industry development through post harvest value adding.

SSA’s products, services, and its comprehensive standards development process, are recognised nationally, by industry and governments, as having contributed significantly to the development of the Australian seafood industry, especially through keeping the industry abreast of legislative and technological change. SSA’s work is also being recognised internationally and used as a model for other primary industry sectors. See Appendix C – SSA Annual Operating Plan, December 2001 to June 2002. Recent evaluations have identified opportunities to further improve SSA’s delivery of products and services to all sectors of the industry.

Incorporation of SSA Ltd establishes a rigorous, transparent and accountable management regime with significant industry ownership that will further focus the SSA’s activities through corporate leadership, strategic vision and closer links with the industry on a national basis. Formal corporate directorship processes will also ensure SSA’s operates strategically within the broad industry development program outlined in the Investing for tomorrow’s fish: the FRDC’s research and development plan, 2000 to 2005.

The SSA Network brings together industry and government members from each State and Territory, and the Commonwealth to seek solutions to a wide range of seafood supply chain issues, including issues of market failure, from seafood safety through to environmental management systems. Experience over the past three years has demonstrated the pivotal role the Network plays in achieving SSA's outcomes so successfully. This project will strengthen the Network so that it can continue to have input into priorities and work programs, thereby ensuring SSA Ltd activities are responsive, cohesive, and appropriately targeted.

SSA Ltd provides a flexible and responsive mechanism that will for the first time, enable the seafood industry to attract private and public funding for seafood industry development from non-traditional funding sources. It will do this by encouraging and supporting people, businesses and organisations in the seafood industry who want to:
1. continually improve and add value to their businesses,
2. continually improve their environmental performance,
3. meet consumer expectations (especially in having high levels of confidence in Australian seafood products), and
4. receive broad community support for their activities.

SSA Ltd will is uniquely poised to foster unprecedented and sustainable seafood industry development, generating significant social and economic benefits to Australia.

Current diagnostic programs generally rely on highly -specific assays for pathogen detection. While these techniques are invaluable, they are one dimensional and do not provide detailed information critical to a disease investigation. These gaps include the inability to detect unknown pathogens and potential variants of know pathogens and provide no additional genomic or transcriptomic data. Moreover, samples must be shipped to trained personnel in a laboratory, further delaying the time to diagnosis. The MinION, on the other hand, can theoretically detect any pathogen and can potentially be deployed to the field. Moreover, the MinION can rapidly generate full-length genomes, allowing for epidemiological tracking of viral or bacterial strains in near real-time. Such rapid data, which cannot be obtained as quickly using existing methods, are vital if the intention is to intervene in an outbreak and reduce impacts on the productivity and profitability of aquaculture facilities. For example, a rapid, early diagnosis may allow mitigating actions to be taken on-farm, such as the diversion of intake water, movement restrictions of stock and the isolation of infected ponds.
These qualities make the MinION an attractive complimentary platform to fill several gaps in the data obtained during disease outbreak investigations, or routine diagnostics, and potentially for use in the field. However, results from the misuse or lack of understanding of the technology could also have adverse regulatory implications for aquaculture industries. For example, without appropriate guidelines, an inexperienced diagnostician may misinterpret a distant DNA match in a pathogen database as a significant result, this may create unwanted attention to industry and potential stock destruction or changes to disease status that are unjustified. Thus, it is critical that the MinION is evaluated at the Australian Animal Health Laboratory, and guidelines and procedures are developed for accurate diagnostic evaluations. The activities detailed in this application will establish the feasibility of using the MinION for diagnostic applications, and ensure that the data is reliably generated and interpreted appropriately.

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