COMPREHENSIVE AQUACULTURE VETERINARY MEDICINE TRAINING FOR VETERINARIANS IN RURAL AMERICA

• Sponsoring Institution: National Institute of Food and Agriculture
• Project Status: TERMINATED
• Funding Source: OTHER GRANTS
• Reporting Frequency: Annual
• Accession No.: 1013840
• Grant No.: 2017-70024-27330
• Project No.: FLA-VME-005644
• Proposal No.: 2017-04588
• Program Code: VSGPE
• Project Start Date: Sep 1, 2017
• Project End Date: Aug 31, 2022
• Grant Year: 2017

Project Director
Francis-Floyd, R.

Recipient Organization
UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
G022 MCCARTY HALL
GAINESVILLE,FL 32611

Performing Department
Large Animal Clinical Sciences

Non Technical Summary
A three-year training program focused on high quality and advanced aquaculture training for veterinarians practicing in rural America is proposed. Aquaculture production in the United States is often located in geographic areas that have been included in the Veterinary Medicine Loan Repayment Program (VLRMP) for early-career veterinarians. These veterinarians often have expertise in traditional animal agriculture and production medicine, but lack the knowledge base that would be required to provide quality service to aquaculture clients located in their practice area. The addition of aquaculture practice would create a novel revenue stream with minimal new investment in equipment required. Concurrently, these aquaculture businesses often do not have access to quality professional services and may routinely submit diagnostic samples on their own, developing treatment plans with no external input. Evolving federal regulations including FDA's Veterinary Feed Directive will make this process illegal. The non-regulatory Commercial Aquaculture Health Program Standards (CAHPS) requires an aquatic animal health team for participating businesses, including a licensed and federally accredited veterinarian for health certification of livestock. The proposed program will recruit 8 practicing early-career veterinarians from appropriate geographic areas to participate in a 24-month training program. Concurrently, national and regional outreach efforts to local aquaculture businesses will initiate partnerships with these veterinarians, with the goal of developing long term veterinary-client-patient relationships. Uniquely, the proposed program moves aquaculture practice away from zoological medicine, which is often where it is included in the veterinary curriculum, and incorporates training in traditional animal agriculture with specialty training in aquaculture production.

Animal Health Component

100%

Research Effort Categories

Basic

(N/A)

Applied

(N/A)

Developmental

(N/A)

Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)	Subject of Investigation (SOI)	Field of Science (FOS)	Percent
311	0810	1160	100%

Knowledge Area
311 - Animal Diseases;

Subject Of Investigation
0810 - Finfish;

Field Of Science
1160 - Pathology;

Keywords

diversify

veterinary training

comprehensive services

aquaculture farms

production

trade

Goals / Objectives
The objective of the proposed program is to offer a 24-month non-degree graduate training program through the University of Florida, involving both the College of Veterinary Medicine and the School of Forest Resources and Conservation, Program in Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences as well as industry partners and USDA APHIS VS. The program will target 8 early-career veterinary practitioners, specifically agricultural animal or mobile practice veterinarians, located in rural or underserved areas, with advanced training in aquaculture practice. Candidates will be selected from specific areas with established or developing aquaculture production. The curriculum will include instruction on general U.S. aquaculture sectors, including species and husbandry information, followed by training for implementing the Commercial Aquaculture Health Program Standards (CAHPS) on the aquaculture sites the veterinarians are working with. Specific objectives are listed below: 1. Recruit 8 early-career veterinarians with active clinical practice focused on agricultural animal production to participate in a 24-month non-degree graduate training program in aquaculture medicine. The recruits will complete an existing on-line Certificate in Aquaculture and Fish Health currently offered by the University of Florida, as well as supplemental training in the CAHPS program, and hands-on training in aquaculture practice. 2. Develop a concurrent outreach program with aquaculture producers in these targeted geographic areas, intended to facilitate training of the local veterinarian and begin to develop the long-term veterinary-client-patient relationships with local aquaculture clientele that the CAHPS program requires. 3. Develop supplemental educational materials for production animal veterinarians that is specifically intended to complement the existing online curriculum for the Certificate in Aquaculture and Fish Health offered by the University of Florida. This material will include detailed training on the CAHPS system as well as hands-on training intended to enhance the clinical skills of these practitioners so they are well prepared to meet the needs of aquaculture clientele. 4. Encourage development of new skill sets for aquaculture veterinarians fostered by cross training with veterinarians skilled in herd health management and production medicine, as well as the economics of rural aquaculture production. This will include on-line and hands-on training which will be incorporated into the 24-month program described in this proposal.

Project Methods
Targeted recruitment will be directed towards early-career veterinarians (preference for those who have graduated within the previous 5 years) currently working in appropriate rural areas. Ideal candidates for this program will be practicing veterinarians, possibly with a mobile-based practice, and a specific interest in animal agriculture and production medicine. Target geographic areas will be based on areas defined in the VLRMP which have known concentrations of aquaculture industries. An application process will include a statement of interest by the applicant that justifies his or her interest in aquaculture medicine and how that fits with their career goals. The program plans to recruit 8 participants, Fellows, for the 24 month training program from around the country. Each Fellow will be assigned a primary mentor when they are accepted into the training program. The mentor will be selected based on the specific interests and goals of the individual. An appropriate outreach program for aquaculture businesses will be developed in cooperation with the National Aquaculture Association, as well as local and state aquaculture associations. Outreach will include participation by program collaborators at national and regional meetings designed for producers, development of supporting educational materials for producers that will be available on-line, and contribution of articles to producer publications. Cooperating producers will benefit from up to 24 months of veterinary consultation, from the Fellow that they have agreed to cooperate with as well as specialist faculty contributing to this project.During the 24-month training program, participating veterinarians will receive instruction from subject matter experts in aquatic animal production and health as well as economics and marketing. Course work will be derived from existing courses and appropriate development of new material specifically designed to meet the goals of this program. Instruction and information delivery will include, but not be limited to, online recorded courses, on-farm site visits, workshops, outreach publications, FaceTime/Skype, and phone mentoring. Fellows will be given scenarios and special projects for evaluation.General Program Structure:1. Use of the existing online certificate in Aquaculture and Fish Health: Currently, the University of Florida School of Forest Resources and Conservation (UF-SFRC), Program in Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, offers an online 12 credit hour graduate certificate program in "Aquaculture and Fish Health". The program includes two required graduate level courses, and two additional elective courses selected from 8 options that are currently offered. Although not specifically designed for veterinarians, several practicing veterinarians have successfully completed the program and several others are currently enrolled. In addition, these courses are offered to veterinary students through an existing Certificate in Aquatic Animal Health that is offered only to veterinary students enrolled in the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine (FL-CVM).2. Development of Supplemental Educational Materials: New educational material to support the principles required for producers to participate in USDA's CAHPS will be developed as part of each Fellow's on-site project. This will be a combination of recorded lectures, regularly scheduled Skype interviews with the assigned mentor, and web-based practicums developed by the collaborating faculty. An analysis will be made of the needs of each participant based on the local industries that he or she will be serving. Educational material and/or hands-on experience appropriate for that industry will be blended into the specific learning goals for each Fellow. This may include site visits to production facilities beyond the local area, or interaction/ visits to local universities, state or federal hatcheries etc3. Development of an on-site training programs for Fellows A ten-day hands-on workshop, including laboratory will be conducted for all participants in the training program at the end of the first year of on-line education. The program will be hosted by the University of Florida's Tropical Aquaculture Laboratory (Ruskin, FL) and will include site visits to different types of production facilities as well as laboratory exercises that emphasize necropsy and diagnostic techniques, water quality analysis, and management strategies. During the second year of the program, participating veterinarians will work with their assigned mentor and local cooperating aquaculture facilities to develop a CAHPS appropriate site-specific pan for the aquaculture business. Further, it is expected that increased interaction and support to the aquaculture business(es) will begin the process of development of long-standing veterinary-client-patient relationships required by CAHPS.To facilitate cross-training of veterinarians familiar with animal agricultural production to work with aquaculture clientele, we will incorporate faculty from the University of Florida's Food Animal and Reproduction Medicine Service program. We expect these experts to contribute content to new educational materials, to participate in the on-site training program, and to contribute to the development of site-specific health plans that participating veterinarians will be required to design for their cooperating aquaculture business.

Progress 09/01/17 to 08/31/22

Outputs
Target Audience:For the duration of the project, the primary target audience was the 8 NIFA Veterinary Aquaculture Fellows. All 8 fellows, selected from a national search in 2018, have remained fully engaged in the program. All completed the University of Florida graduate certificate in Aquaculture and Fish Health as originally proposed; all 8 participated in on-site instruction in 2019 at the University of Florida Tropical Aquaculture Laboratory;and all 8 continueto engage as a group, with their UF mentors, and with new aquatic clienele. One fellow is practicing 100% aquaculture medicine for a state agency, and two others have changed the scope of their practive to 30-40% aquaculture clients. These are signifincat changes as only one fellow was serving aquacutlure clientele when the project was initiated, and for that individual the aquaculture work represented < 10% of the scope of his practice. In additon, two other fellows have become involved in organized veterinary medicine and contributing to aquaculture through an AVMA committee and also through local/ state level organizations and government panels or committees. All fellows are seeing aquatic cases in their practices. The second, and very important, target audience for this project is commercial aquaculture businesses. Many aquaculture businesses, espceially those producing food fish, were severely and negatively impacted by the covid pandemic. Farm sales plummeted as restaurants were closed or curtailed service. Animal care staff, including veterinarians, were furloughed and fish were maintained by skeleton crews for an 18-24 month period as we all dealtwith major societal changes. Finally, in lieu of placing our fellows in consultation with commercial farms as aproposed "capstone project", we instead partnered with the National Aquacultue Association and presented a one-day workshop at Aquaculture America 2022. The morning of the workshop was completely dedicated to the fellows, highlighting their experiences and aspirations. We included a panel with commercial farm managersand fostered active engagement and discussion with veterinarians in the audience, including our fellows. The afternoon session was sponsored by the American Association of Fish Veterinarians, and was targeted more to veterinary continuing education however several producers stayed in the room and participated in the discussions. In the weeks following this meeting two of our fellows picked up commercial contracts from aquaculture businesses that had been at that meeting. They have dramtically increased the scope of aquaculture work in their practices, and have become heavily engaged with producer groups. We believe their success will create additional opportunities for other clinicians. The outcome of this project is what we envisioned when we proposed the approachin 2017 and it is so rewarding to see our vision, and the hard work and dedication provided by the Fellows, result in a significant change in corporate behavior by some of our larger producers. We believe that their success serving these farms will enhance the interface between veterinary practice and aquaculture production in the United States. Changes/Problems:This project was funded in the fall of 2017 and was on track to be completed on time (Aug 31 2020). The project came to a complete halt in Mar 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Briefly, the pandemic and related restrictions to travel plus the very rapiddown-sizing of many aquaculture businesses, including our collaborators, changed everything. An overview of what happened and how we addressed it is provided below. The project director received guidance from Dr. Smith when it became obvious the project would not be completed as originally envisioned with "capstone projects" on individual farms and each fellow working with a producer to develop a site-specific CAHPS plan for that farm. 1. Travel restrictions prevented on-farm work as orginally proposed: In the original proposal the final 6-12 months of training was envisioned as the fellows working with farms in their respective community with one-on-one guidance from the program mentors. None of this happened. Travel restricitons meant that regional travel was curtailed, meetings were largely cancelled, and no one was meeting with people beyond what was necessary. 2. The direct impact on many aquaculture businesses was devastating: The sudden drop in "eating out" by the general public was devastating to aquatic food producers. Many aquatic food products are sold directly to restaurants rather than to consumers to prepare at home. This critical market disappeared essentially overnight. The sudden disappearance of a criticalrevenue stream resulted in substantial layoffs throughout the industry, including veterinary and animal care staff. Animals on some farms were maintained by a skeleton crew providing minimal needs to sustain life but that was it. Normal production goals disappeared. Two on-farm veterinary mentors (one a fellow, one an instructor for this program) were released from employment when they had been working 100% aquaculture practice. Both eventually found new employment in the industry but both had to re-locate acress the country from where they had been. 3. Our USDA-Veterinary Services collaborators were redirected and had unanticipated travel restrictions placed on them: One of our USDA-VS collaborators hadleft her position before covid happened and her position was not refilled. Consequently, the work she was to contribute to the project which was largely development of training materials to support development of CAHPS programs, and guidance for the fellows when working to implement these for individual farms was weakend considerably... and then covid happened and it all changed. USDA-VS personnel were redirected and were heavily engaged in vaccine role out and other related government responses to the pandemic. This meant that no one was available (in Florida or nationally) to develop the CAHPS training materials in the anticipated timeline. Given the lack of direct access to farms it probably did not matter at the time, but ourunderstanding is that this task is now close to completion. Budget limits and travel restrictions, in additon to the above mentioned complications, prevented the final roll out of the CAHPS app that had been planned for Aquaculture American 2022. The plan had been for a 1-2 day workshop on CAHPS, and the fellows were to have first access to the app so they could use it on farm. This just did not happen. 4. What was done to complete the project given the unexpected complications mentioned above: A no-cost extension was requested in 2020 with the idea that an extra year would allow time for the pandemic to subside and we initially envisioned completing the project a year late but with the end product being very close to what had been originally proposed. Eventually the realization dawned that this was not realistic and we could not complete the project as orginially proposed. A second no-cost extension was requested in 2021 following consultation with Dr. Smith. Rather than on-farm collaboration as originally proposed, we requested a major change to the project and partnered with the National Aquaculture Association to design a workshop for producers that would showcase what our fellows, and other veterinarians, can offer to their business model. At the same time, and initially unbeknownst to me, there was an effort by the American Association of Fish Veterinarians to develop a workshop on advanced aquaculture medicine for veterinarians at Aquaculture America. Following some discussions, we joined forces and developed a one-day program featuring the fellows in the morning session, as described in this document, followed by the AAFV program in advanced techniques in the afternoon. The program was delivered on Mar 3 2020 in San Diego CA and had very good attendance by veterinarians and acceptable attendance by some of the producers, including some large corporations. While planning Aquaculture America, we initially thought the fellows would receive at least one day of training from USDA on CAHPS. That eventually was cancelled due to the limitations mentioned above. But, we decided to take advantage of the location by partnering with Dr. Alex Primus of Hubbs Sea World Research Institute (HSWRI)in San Diego. He hosted us for a one-day on-farm program which included discussions of HSWRI programs and objectives, his role as the aquaculture veterinarian, discussions of production process and community grow out of the white sea bass... plus tours of facilities. HSWRI has a marine fish hatchery in Carlsbad CA, about a 1 hr drive from San Diego. We bused the fellows to the hatchery and Dr. Primus provided a walking tour while the fellows asked questions about production practices, equipment, techniques, husbandry practices etc. Then we bused everyone back to San Diego for a tour of fish-rearing facilities at HSWRI main campus. Six of our 8 fellows participated fully in the Aquacultue American activites. Finally, the American Associaiton of Fish Veterinarians is hosting an in-person conference at the University of Florida Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience in October 2022. We were able to offer registration to the fellows and five of them accepted. Two will travel to Florida (at their own expense)to attend the meeting in-person, while three more will participate virtually. We will organize a little reunion for them. Finally, I want to say that this group has completely bonded and I am confident they will remain in close contact with each other for the rest of their careers. The collaborate and discuss aquatic cases as well as more routine cases they see in their practice. They have been a complete joy to work with and they are making a difference. This has been a very rewarding project and I believe it has and will continue to make a difference, both in the professional lives of our fellows and in the industry they serve. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?2018: American Academy of Veterinary Consultants - Beef: Ruth Francis-Floyd presented a 1 hr CE lecture entitled "Opportunities in Aquaculture Practice for Rural Veterinarians, Dallas TX (Apr 14 2018). No charge to grant but used as part of the national recruiting effort for the fellows. 2018-2020: Eight fellows began graduate on-line training for the University of Florida graduate certificate in Aquaculture and Fish Health. All fellows completed this program by summer 2020. The certificate consited on 4 grduate level classes (3 credits each). Two required classes were: Aquaculture I(FAS 5015) Diseases of Warm Water Fishes (FAS 5255) The fellows each selected two electives from the following options: Biology of Fishes (FAS 5203C) Fish and Crustacean Nutrition (FAS 6165) Aquatic Invertebrate Ecological Physiology (FAS 6154) Algae Biology and Ecology (FAS 6176) Fish/ Shellfish Histological Interpretation (FAS 6256) Aquaculture II (FAS 6408) Aquatic Animal Conservation Issues (VME 6010) Aquatic Wildlife Health Issues (VME 6011) One fellow also completed Applied Shellfish Farming, a 4 month on-line class offered by Roger Williams Universit 2019: Supplemental On-Line Curriculum: !4 hours of on-line Training recorded by specialists from around the country Advanced Water Quality Considerations (Kent Semmen, Disney Animal Programs) Advanced Water Conditioning (53 min) What's in the Water? (40 min) Total Dissolved Gas Dynamics (15 min) Establishing Nitrification in Fish Systems (36 min) Environmental Homeostasis in Recirculating Aquatic Systems (32 min) Water Quality Emergency Response (15 min) Bivalve Production (Shirley Baker, University of Florida) Introduction to Bivalve Production (10 min) Hatchery Production of Clams (8 min) Other Examples of Bivalve Production, Global Perspective (12 min) Environmental Requirements/ Pests (10 min) Impacts on the Environment (7 min) Shrimp Production (Andrew Ray, Kentucky State University) Shrimp Production (1 hr, 25 min) Salmonid/ Finfish Production (Stephen Reichley, Clear Springs Foods) Overview of Aquatic Animals Raised for Human Consumption (44 min) Practical Approaches to Herd Health in Aquaculture (40 min) Disease Management in Salmonid Aquaculture (Stephen Reichley, Clear Springs Foods) Fish Health Assessment on the Farm (47 min) In-House Diagnostics for Aquaculture (52 min) Selected Parasitic and Fungal Diseases of Cultured Trout (35 min) Selected Bacterial Diseases of Cultured Trout (37 min) Selected Viral Diseases of Cultured Salmonids (31 min) Antibiotics and VFDs in Food Fish Aquaculture (28 min) Diseases of Bivalves (Roxanna Smolowitz, Roger Williams University) Important Diseases of Cultured Oyster, Part 1 (29 min) Important Diseases of Cultured Bivalves, Part 2 (1 hr) Important Diseses of Larval and Juvenile Bivalves (25 min) Hatchery Basics (28 min) On-Site Training at UF Tropical Aquaculture Lab (TAL) Jun 24-28 2019 (Ruskin FL) Day 1: Introductions, Florida Aquaculture, CAHPS, Record Keeping Introduciton to Florida Aquaculture, Ornamental Fish Trade (E Cassiano) Review of CAHPS Principles, Discussion of Projects (K Hartman and K Starzel) Farm Tour: 5-D Tropicals (emphasis on veterinary perspective for on-farm work, large production facility) Live Case Studies (K Hartman and K Starzel) Record Keeping, Distance Management (B Michaels) Day 2: Aquaculture Practice, Water Quality, Life Support Systems TAL Farm Tour Realities of Aquaculture Practice (M Kebus) Farm Tour: Segrest Farms (emphasis on life support systems and biosecurity) Water Quality Lab (Pouder, Francis-Floyd, Yanong) Life Support Systems Components Lab (Cassiano, Semmen, Yanong) Life Support Systems Analysis Lab, Part 1 (Semmen, Yanong) Day 3: Advanced Water Quality, Shrimp Farm Visit Life Support Systems Analysis Lab, Part 2 (Semmen, Yanong) Shrimp Farm Visit: American Panaid (Pine Island FL) Day 4: Diseases and Necropsy (Finfish, Shrimp) Fish Anatomy, Clinical Handling, Necropsy Techniques (Dill-Okubo, Pouder) Shrimp Necropsy and Pathology (Bojko, Starzel) Sample Collection for Diagnostic Testing (Bojko, Starzel, Pouder) Day 5: Bivalve Production, Necropsy Techniques, Pathology, Economics Farm Tour: Shellfish Hatchery Bivalve Anatomy Lab (Baker, Smolowitz) Bivalve Necropsy, Diagnostic Sampling, and Histology (Smolowitz, Baker, Dill-Okubo) Bivalve Pathology Lab (Smolowitz, Dill-Okubo) Aquaculture Economics (Engle) 2020: Aquaculture America Feb 9-12, 2020 (Honolulu, HI) 4 presentations resulting from or related to this project (see next section), including education on CAHPS for veterinarians and producers, and presentations for producers, veterinarains and extension specialsts. One of the fellows attended Aquaculture America at his own expense in part to participate in the Zebrafish Husbandy Workshop on Feb 10-11, 2020. He picked up 12 CEUs to support his veterinary license plus the specialty training in zebrafish medicine and husbandry that he was interested in. International Assocation for Aquatic Animal Medicine Jun 15-16,2020 (virtual conference) Ruth Francis-Floyd presented a lecture on the NIFA Fellowship program (see section below). The lecture was approved for RACE-approved CEUs. 2021: International Association for Aquatic Animal Medicine, May 23-26 2021 (virtual conference) - one fellow requested support for registration to attend this meeting and we were able to accomodate that request. Participants can earn up to 20 CEUs to support veterinary licensure. Aquaculture America Aug 11-14, 2021 (San Antonio TX) - one fellow attended Aquaculture America 2021 "on his own" to enhance networking efforts with aquaculture industry. We offered to support him with registration but he declined since he had already paid it. 2022: Aquaculture America 2022, Feb 28-Mar 4 2022 (San Diego CA) 6 Fellows attended Aquaculture America 2022; On Mar 3 2022 we presented a half-day program sponsored by the National Aquaculture Association for producers and veterinarians (see next section for program); Everyone also attended and engaged in discussions in an Advanced Aquaculture Medicine half-day program sponsored by the American Association of Fish Veterinarians that followed the morning session. RACE-Approved CEUs were provided to all veterinarians that attended. On-Site Training: Hubbs Sea World Research Institure (HSWRI) - Aquaculture(Mar 4 2022, San Diego CA) Introduction to HSWRI Aquaculture Program (Alex Pimus, DVM) Farm Tour: Marine Fish Hatchery (Carlsbad CA) The Role of the Veterinarian at HSWRI-Aquaculture Units (Primus) HSWRI Facility Tour (San Diego CA) American Association of Fish Veterinarians, Oct 21-23 2022 (St Augutine FL) We offered to pre-pay registration for fellows who wanted to attend the 2022 meeting of the American Association of Fish Veterinarians. Five fellows accepted the offer. Two will attend in person at their own expnse and three will attend virtually. Drs. Francis-Floyd and Yanong will be in attendence and will engagewith participating fellows. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Presentations and published abstracts have been provided at Aquaculture America in 2020 and 2022. Details are provided below. In additon, a scientific presentaiton on the training program was provided to the International Associaiton for Aquatic Animal Medicine in 2020. Finally, in 2021 we were asked to provide perspective on training veterinarians for aquaculture service by an international audience. Although not the primary focus of that presentation the NIFA Aquaculture VeterinaryFellows Program was described in some detail. Specifics are provided below. Aquaculture America - 2020 (Honolulu HI) Yanong, R.P. and Francis-Floyd, R. 2020. How to work with veterinarians: A not-so-secret secret to enhance aquaculture's bottom line. Honolulu HI. Presented Feb 11 2020 to a veterinary audience; also presented Feb 12 2020 to a producer audience. Hartman, K. 2020. Commercial Aquaculture Health Program Standards (CAHPS) Program: Implementation Update. Honolulu HI. Presented Feb 11 2020 to a mixed audience. Francis-Floyd, R., Yanong, R.P., Starzel, K., Hartman, K., Watson, C.A. 2020. Veterinary fellowship in aquaculture medicine: a new approach for training practicing veterinarians to serve aquaculture producers. Honoululu HI. Presented Feb 11 2020 to an audience of extension specialists, educators, and aquaculture producers. International Association for Aquatic Animal Medicine - 2020 (Virtual Conference) Francis-Floyd, R., Yanong, R.P., Watson, C.A., Hartman, K., Starzel, K. 2020. Advanced Training in Aquaculture Medicine for Practicing Veterinarians: The USDA-NIFA Fellowship Program. Virtual Presentation, May 25 2021. US-Japan Natural Resources Aquaculture Panel - 2021 (Virtual Conference) Larkin, I.V. and Francis-Floyd, R. 2021. Aquaculture Medicine in the 21st Century: Training the Veterinary Community to Meet the Needs of a Global Industry. US-Japan Natural Resource Aquaculture Panel. Virtual Presentation, Nov 3 2021. Aquaculture America - 2022 (San Diego CA) Special Session sponsored by the National Aquaculture Associaiton: "Getting the Most Bang for your Buck: The Value of Comprehensive Veterinary Service" (Chaired by Ruth Francis-Floyd) Opening Remarks and Welcome (Craig Watson) Veterinary Medicine for 21st Century Aquatic Farms (Ruth Francis-Floyd and Roy Yanong) Working as an Aquaculture Veterinarian in Washington State (ED Haigh, USDA-NIFA Fellow) Why a Dairy Veterinarian is Interested in Aquaculture (Paul Niehaus, USDA-NIFA Fellow) Veterinarians and the Future of Aquaculture (Danielle Lore, USDA-NIFA Fellow) Adapting Principles of Aquaculture to Laboratory Animal Medicine Practice (Jon Lee, USDA-NIFA Fellow) Challenges of Becoming an Aquatic Veterinarian After Graduation (Irene Yen, USDA-NIFA Fellow) All Creatures Big and Small (David Wilbur, USDA-NIFA Fellow) Panel Discussion with Producers (Hosted by Craif Watson, UF Tropical Aquaculture Lab and Sean Nepepr (Riverence) What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? 1. Goal #1 was completed during the first two years of the program as intended. Eightveterinary fellows were recruited from a national pool of applicants. At the time, one had a very small (<10%) aquaculture component to his practice. One of the fellows was 100% commercial dairy practice but was from an area with a large number of trout farms. One fellow was completing her veterinary education but had accepted a position as staff veterinarian at a large commercial aquaculture operation. All 8 fellows attended on-site (hands -on) training at the University of Florida Tropical Aquaculture Lab in 2019, which included site visit to multiple farms including ornamental fish production, shrimp and shellfish production. All 8 fellows completed the on-line graduate certificate in Aquaculture and Fish Health by summer 2020. Training in CAHPS (Comprehensive Aquaculture Health Program Standards) was provided by USDA Veterinary Medicial Officers during on-site training in 2019, and additionally via one-on-one zoom sessions in 2021-2022.Six of the eight fellows participated in an Aquaculture America one-day program for veterinarians and producers in 2022. Twofellows attended Aquaculture America at theirown expense in 2020 and a different fellow attended the meeting at his own expense in 2021. Goal number one was completed and the work exceeded our initial expectations. 2. Goal #2 focused on development of an outreach program for producers. This was initiated in 2019 but then was put on hold until Feb 2022 because of the pandemic. In the original proposal, producer outreach was intended to occur largely during the third year (2019-2020) which was when the fellows were to be assigned work with commercial producers. This was initiated during the on-site training program held in Florida. Fellows visited multiple commercial farms (ornamental fish production, shrimp and shellfish production). They had informal discussions with producers, developed more confidence visiting an aquaculture farm, and improved their understanding of what the producers might need from them in terms of veterinary service. Covid really had a negative impact on this aspect of the project. In addition to the on-farm work provided in 2019, we introduced the fellowship training programs to producers via Aquaculture America 2020 which occured in February. We were actively soliciting producers to volunteer to havefellows work with them on their farms. We were also reaching out to extension agents and specialists in areas with significant aquaculture production. Covid-19 began to be mentioned in the news while we were at that meeting and a few weeks later everything shut down. Since then we requested (and were granted) two no-cost extensions to try to address this aspect of the project. Finally, in the fall of 2021 we were able to successfully partner with the National Aquaculture Association and propose a special session to be held at Aquaculture American 2022 entitled, "Getting the Most Bang for your Buck: The Value of Comprehensive Veterinary Service". This session was presented from 9:00 am to noon on Thursday Mar 3 2022. It was followed by an afternoon session entitled, "Advanced Veterinary Care" that was sponsored by the American Association of Fish Veterinarians. Both sessions were very well attended by veterinarians and RACE-approved CE was offered. Importantly however, a number of representatives of major aquaculture businesses stuck with us all day and several employment opportunities presented themselves to several of our fellows in the days and weeks following the conference. 3. Goal #3 involved the development of new and unique curricular materials to supplement existing on-line training that was being offered to the fellows via the graduate certificate in Aquaculture and Fish Health. During the first 18 months of this project significant new material was developed to enhance the available curriculum for for the fellows. This included approximately 14hours of recorded instruction by specialists from around the country and posted for the fellows on aneducational website supported by the Univeristy of Florida that the fellows hadaccess to for the duration of the project. This material was firstprovided in 2019, but has remained available to the fellows. The curriculum included: Advanced Water Quality and Trouble-Shooting Life Support Systems (6 lectures, 3.5 hours total contact time) Bivalve Biology and Production Practices (5 lectures, 1 hr total contact time) Shellfish Diseases and Pathology (2 lectures, 3 hr total contact time) Production and Health Management of Salmonids (7 lectures, 4.5 hrs total contact time) Shrimp Biology and Production (2 lectures, 2 hr total contact time) In additon, a one-week on-site laboratory and field experience was provided to the fellows in June 2019. Curriculum included: Advanced water quality discussion, problem solving and wet labs Diagnostic and disease sampling labs, including necropsy, for finfish, shellfish and penaeid shrimp Economics, record keeping and business management Basic animal handling and diagnostic techniques for finfish, shrimp and shellfish CAHPS training, including scenario based discussions Site visits to production facilities and discussions with producers (commercial finfish, penaeid shrimp and bivalve production) Finally, because one of the fellows has a strong interest in the shellfish industry, we were able to arrange for him to participate in an on-line course (3 credit hours), Applied Shellfish Farming,offered by Roger Williams University in 2019. Additional training on CAHPS was provided to fellows on a one-on-one basis by USDA Veterinary Medicial Officers via zoom in 2020-2021.Some material was developed by USDA and "piloted" using the fellows, with the ultimate intent of production of a CAHPS "app" that veterinarians could use on the farm. This effort is still in progress. 4. Goal #4 involved cross-training the aquaculture fellows in production medicine and herd health analytics by teaming up with more traditional production veterinarians, and addressing the economic realities of rural aquaculture production. The economic piece was largely addressed during the on-site workshop in 2019 that is mentioned above. Three consultants participated via zoom and provided instruction and discussion about economics from the producer's perspective as well as from the practitioner's prespective. Discussions included billing for your time, geographic considerations when clients were spread over a large area, and establising a VCPR (Veterinary-Client-Patient-Relationship) required by law to write prescriptions and provide provide professional service with regulatory issues. Initially the envisioned cross-training with a more traditionally trained production animal pracititioner was stymied because one of our original co-investigators withdrew from the project due to a change in employment. Despite repeated efforts we were unable to recruit someone to fill that role. It turns out, however, that one of our own fellows had 30 years experience in dairy practice. It became obvious over time that he sees things through a slightly different lens, and he articulated this very clearly during a presentation at Aquaculture America2022... and the producers in the audience responded in a very positive way.This individual is extremely engaged, as are all of the fellows, so he has provided mentorship in this area to the group. Going forward, he has agreed to help us build on this skill set for other veterinarians and aquaculture businesses.

Publications

• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Francis-Floyd, R., Yanong, R. Starzel, K., Hartman, K., Watson, C. 2018. Opportunities in Aquaculture Practice for Rural Veterinarians. Presented by Ruth Francis-Floyd to the Academy of Veterinary Consultants - Beef. Dallas, Tx. Apr 14 2018.
• Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Nolan, S. 2018. UF accepting applications for aquaculture fellowships. JAVMA News: Practice. Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, Apr 1 2018. (https://www.abma.org/News/JAVMANews/Pages/180401g.aspc)
• Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Carey, S. New federal grant will provide fellowships in aquaculture training to rural veterinarians. UF Health Press Release, Mar 8 2018.
• Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Clewis, W. 2018. Florida is offering 8 aquaculture fellowships. The Independent Florida Alligator. Mar 14 2018.
• Type: Websites Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Rural aquaculture veterinarian training fellowships announced. Posted on UF/ IFAS School of Forest Resources and Conservation Website, Feb 15 2018.
• Type: Websites Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Aquaculture Medicine Training Fellowships. Posted on UF/ IFAS Tropical Aquaculture Laboratory web site, Mar 14 2018.
• Type: Websites Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: A website for the fellows was developed that included 14 hours of recorded lectures and published pdf documents to supplement other educational materials available to the fellows. Access to this website has been maintained for the duration of the training program for all fellows. https://ufl.instructure.com/courses/371171 (Note access is restricted so the public cannot access this site).
• Type: Other Status: Other Year Published: 2019 Citation: A one-week hands-on training was provided to fellows in Jun 2019. Details of the curriculum are presented elsewhere in the report. The program was a 5-day training hosted by the UF Tropical Aquaculture Laboratory in Ruskin FL.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Francis-Floyd, R. Yanong, R., Starzel, K., Hartman, K., Watson, C. 2020. Fellowship in Aquaculture Medicine: Training Practicing Veterinarians to serve Aquaculture Producers. Aquaculture America, Feb 9-12 2020, Honolulu HI.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Yanong, R. and Francis-Floyd, R. 2020. How to Work with Veterinarians: A Not-So-Secret Secret to Enhancing Aquaculture's Bottom Line. Aquaculture America, Feb 9-12 2020, Honolulu HI. (Note that this was presented in two different sessions, one with a veterinary audience and one with a producer audience).

Progress 09/01/20 to 08/31/21

Outputs
Target Audience:During the reporting period (Aug 31 2020 - Aug 31 2021) all 8 veterinary fellows remained engaged and were the primary target audience of the program. By the end of 2020, all 8 fellows had completed the on-line graduate certificate in Aquaculture and Fish Health through the University of Florida's School of Forest, Fisheries and Geomatic Sciences or FFGS (formerly the School of Forest Resources and Conservation, or SFRC). All 8 fellows remain engaged in aquaculture-related activities as part of their professional practice.More detail on this will be provided below. The second target audience for this project is producers. The fall of 2020 and spring of 2021 were planned as "on-farm" training to complete the CAHPS training and development of a farm-speciifc CAHPS plan with participating producers. Due to continued travel restrictions associated with the pandemic, and continued poor demand for may seafood products (caused by changes in the restaurant industry) there were no successful interactions with producer groups. One of our fellows did attend the Aquaculture America meeting which was held Aug 11-14, 2021 in San Antonio Tx in an effort to build an aquaculture component to his private practice, but there was no formal outreach to commercial producers that was related to this grant.Further, our USDA collaborators were redirected to support the federal response to the pandemic and efforts to complete development of CAHPS training materials and an "on-farm app" for use by veterinarians was put on the back burner and not completed on schedule. Changes/Problems:This project was funded in fall of 2017 and was on track to be completed on time, which would have been Aug 31, 2020. The project came to essentially a complete halt in March 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Briefly, the pandemic and related restrictions affected progress on the final phase of this project in three important ways: Travel restrictions prevented the on-farm work that had been initially proposed. Direct impact on aquaculture industries was devastating, particularly food animal production. Most aquaculture (food) products are sold directly to restaurants, either through distributors or by other means. This market was shuttered and has not yet recovered. Farms laid off staff and shifted animal care to skeleton crews. Livestock were shifted to maintenance diets intended to keep them alive and healthy but to minimize growth so they did not get too large for sale to intended markets when the crisis ended. There was no mechanism to proceed with the planned activities involving farms as described in the original proposal. Our collaborators in USDA-Veterinary Services were re-directed to support the federal COVID response efforts. They were not available to develop planned training materials and conduct the proposed training in "Comprehensive Aquaculture Health Program Standards", or CAHPS, which was the final phase of the project. At this time, we are hoping restrictions will continue to be lifted and things will normalize as a greater percentage of the populaiton is vaccinated. We have a plan, detailed above, to complete the training covered in the original proposal. We believe the proposed work will be an enhancement to the original proposal and USDA-VS hopes to be able to provide supplemental funds to facilitate completion of the project and engage with producers as originally proposed. An outline of the proposed changes to the original proposal was sent to our national program leader, Dr. Robert Smith, in June 2021 for approval. The approval was granted in the form of a no cost extension mentioned above. At this time $24k remains available from the original grant funding. If the no-cost extension and proposed changes are approved, all work on the project would be completed by May 2022 and a final report would be submitted to USDA-NIFA by August 2022. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?There were very few new opportunities for professional development in the field of aquaculture medicine that were provided to fellows during the current reporting period due to the pandemic and all the restrictions, lifestyle changes, and negative impacts on US aquaculture. We offered support to veterinary fellows by offering to pay registration fees for professional meetings that they could attend virtually that would support their continued training and CEUs in aquaculture/ fish medicine. One fellow requested support to attend the virtual International Association for Aquatic Animal Medicine meeting which was held May 23-26, 2021. We provided support by paying the registraiton fee and she was able to get continuing education credits to support her veterinary licensure. A second fellow attended Aquaculture America, Aug 11-14 2021 in San Antonio Tx. We offered to pay his registration fee as continuing education credits for veterinarians are available for some of the sessions at that meeting, but he declined the offer. None of the other fellows accepted the offer for support of virtual learning or conference participation. We will provide professional development opportunies early in 2022 as part of the no-cost extension for this project. All fellows have been provided dates so they can try to protect their time for the dates we expect to offer in-person training opportunities. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Four abstracts related to this project have been published for stakeholder groups and communities of interest. Three of these resulted from presentations at the Aquaculture America meeting in Feb 2020, which preceded the pandemic and were included in last year's report. During the current reporting period an abstract was published and presentation provided at the virtual meeting of the International Association for Aquatic Animal Medicine meeting in May 2021. The citation for that abstract is provided above. The audience for that meeting was primarily veterinarians and veterinary students. With that said, the response to the presentation and intent of the fellowship training program was extremely positive. Due to constraints of the pandemic, none of us reached out to producer groups during the current reporting period. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We requested a no-cost extension because most of our planned activies for 2020-2021, which were intended to complete the training promised in the original proposal, were cancelled due to the pandemic and all of the restrictions and changes that were associated with that. Further, our USDA collaborators were re-driected to support the federal response and were not able to complete the development of CAHPS training materials as planned. Travel restritcions prevented planned on-farm work and the direct impact of the pandemic on aquaculture industries, particularly food fish industries, was devastating. With all that transpired, we requested a no-cost extension fo the project through Aug 31, 2022. This request has been granted. The plan is as follows: Aquaculture America 2022 (Feb 27-Mar 3, 2022; San Diego CA) This will be a full program and USDA will be introducing the formal CAHPS program to producers at this meeting. There will be a special session for veterinarians to provide training on how to use a mobile phone app that is being developed by USDA for on-farm use. Successful use of the app requires foundational training in epidemiology and risk assessment. Development of the app is not complete at this time, but it may be necessary to provide specific training to practitioners so that they can use the app effectively. With the no-cost extension, we plan to support travel of all fellows to attend this meeting. In addition to the CAHPS training, we will plan to take the fellows to visit the Hubbs-Sea World aquaculture / mariculture facility in the San Diego area. We will use this as an opportunity to provide additional exposure to a type of industry they may not have seen and that we do not have in Florida, and hopefully have some small gorup educatonal sessions that will be tailored to their training. The convention will provide an opportunity for them to interact with producers, and become familiar with the latest technology and industry practices. The visit to Hubbs will create an opportunity to get the group together at a smaller venue than the main convention. 2. On-Farm CAHPS Training (May 18-20, 2022, Ruskin FL) Fellows will be invited back to Florida for a three-day on-farm training in May 2022 (tentatively May 18-20, 2022). The training will involve additional training from USDA on using the CAHPS app for on-farm work; the fellows will then be divided into 4 teams of two veterinarians each, and assigned to conduct a complete CAHPS assessment on a participating farm located near the UF IFAS Tropical Aquaculture Laboratory. On the third day, the fellows will meet back at the lab and report their findings to the group, with active group discussion of each of the farms and associated recommendations. The dates of this workshop are proposed so that they back up to the 2022 International Association for Aquatic Animal Medicine conference which will be in Tampa, May 22-25, 2022. Some of the fellows may elect to stay in Tampa and attend that meeting at their own expense. 3. Cross Training in Production and Population Medicine In our original proposal one of our collaborators was a trained dairy practitioner and had agreed to work with us to adapt some of the tools he used in his practice to aquaculture practice. He changed jobs and withdrew from the project duriing the first year of funding and we have not successfully found someone else to fulfill this role. Until now. One of our own fellows will do this work and we propose to hire him as a consultant for this project. He will work with us to create new content, curricular materials and an educational workshop that addresses the potential adaptation of tools used in herd management and health monitoring to the aquaculture industry. This training will be provided to fellows in early 2022. It will be a small step into a new way of thinking about some aspects of aquaculture medicine.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? 1. All 8 fellows remain actively engaged in the program. They have all become good friends and colleagues, and have really become an enhancement to the field in their communities, and frankly to us. By the end of 2020, all had completed the Aquaculture and Fish Health certificate program. In 2019 we offered a one-week hands-on practicum that was taught at the UF Tropical Aquaculture Laboratory in Ruskin, Florida. All fellows participated in that activity. The supplemental training in CAHPS has been on-hold as we wait on Covid-19 restrictions to be lifted. A no-cost extension was requested in June 2021 to extend the grant activities one more year to allow time for Covid to get under control as more people get vaccinated. We have a plan in place (discussed below) to complete CAHPS training early in 2022. 2. The effort to reach out to aquaculture producers was initiated in 2020 as collaborators on this project presented three educational programs directed to producers, extension specialists and veterinarians at Aquaculture America 2020. This meeting took place in Feb 2020. Within a few weeks of returning from the meeting the world changed as the Covid-19 pandemic took hold, and we no longer had access to producers or farms. One of our fellows did attend Aquaculture America 2021 (San Antonio TX, Aug 11-14) to support his own efforts to network with aquaculture producers. We have a plan in place for Aquaculture America 2022 (Feb 28-Mar 4, 2022; San Diego CA) which will be one of the activities carried out with the no-cost extension that was granted to allow us to continue to work on this through August 2022. 3. Curricular materials specifically intended to supplement the exisitng on-line curriculum in Aquaculture and Fish Health were completed and posted in 2019. These supplemental lectures and related material remain available to the fellows through the UFe-learning website. Our USDA colleagues have been working on additional training documents to support the CAHPS initiative which will be made available to our fellows at our workshop in 2022, described below. 4. Efforts to cross-train our aquaculture fellows in classical "produciton medicine" or herd health management did not develop as planned when one of our initial collaborators had to withdraw from the project due to a change in employment. We were unable to find an academic partner proficient in production management / medicine that had the time and the interest to collaborate with us to train aquaculture veterinarians. One of our own fellows will be be working as a subcontractor on this project and will develop some educational materials to support this goal.

Publications

• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2021 Citation: Francis-Floyd, R. Yanong, R., Starzel, K., Hartman, K. and Watson, C. 2021. Advanced Training in Aquaculture Medicine for Practicing Veterinarians: The USDA-NIFA Fellowship Program. International Association for Aquatic Animal Medicine Virtual Conference. May 25, 2021.

Progress 09/01/19 to 08/31/20

Outputs
Target Audience:There were two target audiences during the reporting period (Sep 1, 2019 - Aug 31, 2020). The main target audience continues to be our 8 NIFA Veterinary Fellows in Aquaculture Medicine. During the reporting period all 8 fellows continued to be engaged in academic work supported by this program and at this time, 7 of the 8 have completed the Aquaculture and Fish Health Certificate program offered by the University of Florida. The eighth fellow will complete her final course in the spring 2021. This is discussed in greater detail below. One of the fellows, a laboratory animal specialist with an interest in zebrafish, was able to attend the Aquaculture America meeting (Feb 9-12, 2020) and he attended the entire Zebrafish Husbandry Workshop presented at the meeting. The was lecture/ seminar format and was two full days of programming. Topics ranged from fish diseases to record keeping and housing appropriate for research colonies. The second target audinece was aquaculture producers and affiliated professionals. This audience was reached through active engagement of program partners at the Aquaculture America Conference which was Feb 9-12, 2020. Unfortuneately Covid restrictions were implemented within a few weeks of the closing of that conference. Four relevant presentations were provided to aquaculture producers, veterinarians, and extension specialists. This is discussed in greater detail below. Changes/Problems:1. Loss of USDA Veterinary Medical Officer Kathearine Starzel. Dr. Starzel was a cooperator on this project and served as the primary liason wiht USDA for day-to-day training of fellows and facilitiation of opportunities for fellows to work on farms in Florida. Dr. Starzel took a different position within USDA and relocated in the fall of 2019. Her position, which was housed at the UF Tropical Aquaculture Laboratory, has not been replaced. 2. Relocation of multiple fellows participating in the program. Six of the fellows engaged in this program are very early in their careers (by design). As such, relocation and changes in employment are to be expected. Three fellows changed jobs and relocated to different states during the reporting period. One fellow relocated from a rural practice in Texas to a companion/ mixed animal practice in Wisconsin. He does continue to see fish patients and is working with state agencies to support Wisconsin-based aquatic businesses. One fellow working as a staff veterinarian at a fish farm in Florida was furloughed following the onset of Covid-19. She worked in a companion animal practice in Florida for several months but has recently relocated to Oregon and is working for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife as a fish health specialist supporting four salmon hatcheries. Finally, one fellow has relocated from a companion animal practice in southern California to an emergency medicine position in Washingtom state. She collaborates with another fellow in the region and is trying to provide some service to the shellfish industry as a personal endeavor. 3. Continued difficulty recruiting a specialist and collaborator with training in traditional production medicine One of the "big ideas" we had hoped to pursue with this project was creating an interface between classical production veterinary medicine and aquaculture. The faculty member who had committed to facilitate that part of the project accepted a position at another instituion and was unable to fulfill that committment. Despite some significant effort, a replacement for that role was never identified. Now, as we near the end of the training program we believe we may have developed the exprertise we were seeking in-house with one of the fellows. We still hope to be able to make some progress with this goal in the coming six months. 4. Covid-19 restrictions and impacts on aquaculture businesses Covid-19 has had two major, and negative, impacts on this project. First .. the travel restictions essentially "shut down" plans to get fellows onto fish farms which was supposed to be the capstone of the 24-month training program. Further, as the economy collapsed, many fish farms down-sized dramatically and furloughing of professional staff (veterinarians and supporting technicians and biologists) seemed to happen very quickly. One of our fellows who worked as a staff veterinarian at a large commercial farm was furloughed and forced to take a job in companion animal practice. She has since relocated and is now working for a state fish and game agency, working as a fish health specialist with oversight of four salmon hatcheries. So she is now working as an aquaculture veterinarian but is no longer working for a commercial farm. One of our fellows had been working closely with a very large corporate veterinarian who was responsible for animal health on many fish farms. We were hopeful that our fellow might be hired as a contract or part-time clinical veterinarian by the corporation. Instead, when the impacts of Covid hit the area, the staff veterinarian and support staff were furloughed. No further interaction with that (very large) company has been possible. We had hoped to help our fellows get to local and regional meetings where they could interact with aquaculture producers in their area, and in one case we had hoped to facilitate some industry-specific specialized training, by sending a fellow to a hands on workshop in an adjoining state. All the events we were considering and had discussed with individuals were cancelled. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?As mentioned above, all 8 veterinary fellows have completed on-line graduate level course work in aquaculture, fish health and related subject areas. As of Aug 2020, 7 of the 8 have completed the Certificate in Aquaculture and Fish Health from the University of Florida School of Forest Resources and Conservation, Program in Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences. One fellow has to complete one more 3 credit hour class in order to receive her certificate. All 8 fellows participated in a one-week on-site practicum offered at the University of Florida Tropical Aquaculture Laboratory in 2019. One fellow with a specific interest and expertise in laboratory animal medicine completed a two-day "Zebrafish Husbandry Workshop" that was presented as a stand alone program at Aquaculture America, Feb 9-10, 2020, Honolulu HI. The participating fellow was able to network with leaders of the Zebrafish Husbandry Association, a professional society of veterinarians and other professionals who promote education and development of zebrafish husbandry standards. One of the fellows has become very engaged with his state's department of agriculture and is actively seekeing appointment to an oversight board that has some say on aquaculture regulation. We applaud this effort and provide any support requested. We do not know yet if his appointment will be approved but we are so excited and proud of his active engagement in his state. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?At this time, the primary "community of interest" is the 8 veterinary fellows that have been in the fellowship program since 2018. Over the past two years the group has grown incredibly collaborative and all have completed engaged with each other as well as with program mentors. In addition to formal course work, mentioned above, UF faculty interact with the fellows individually or in groups on a regular basis. This is by telephone, text, and email, as well as in person whenever possible (especially prior to Mar 2020). Faculty mentors schedule appointments to discuss progress in the program, obstacles to work in the aquaculture field, and plans to enhance the fellows' overeall experience. Each person has individual interests and all have grown in the field. Program mentors have been able to include fellows in some teaching activities (so that they are the instructors) and have successfully referred clinical cases to some of them. The faculty mentor is always available to support them from behind-the-scenes as they work through the case. Recently, one of the fellows took the lead and actually provided substantial support to one of the mentors trying to help a local producer with a regulatory concern. Two fellows were enrolled in the summer fish disease class (Diseases of Warm Water Fish, FAS 5225 C). One of them actively participated in all "live" discussion activities and showed tremendous leadership and engagement which was very beneficial to the rest of the class (70 students total). We absolutely intend to use some of these wonderful professionals as guest instructors moving forward. The teaching has gone full circle in more than once case. Efforts to disseminate information to producer and supporting professionals (ie extension specialists etc) were carried out effectively at the Aquaculture America conference in Feb 2020. Faculty mentors presented 3 presentations to producer groups that supported this initiative and two additional presentations to veterinary audiences to support active engagement with prospective aquaculture businesses. Efforts planned beyond Feb 2020 were curtailed, at least temporarilty, due to the Covid-19 pandemic. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Before the end of the year Dr. Hartman will develop lecture and supporting curricular materials to provide more formal training in CAHPs principles to the fellows. The 5 program standards that will be emphasized are: 1. Development of the aquatic animal health team 2. Risk characterization and management 3. Surveillance 4. Investigation and reporting 5. Response We envision Dr. Hartman recordng about two hours of lecture material to support this effort, and then hosting one or more "live discussion" sessions via zoom to discuss the application of these principles to actual farms and needs of specific industries. Supportive materials will be provided to the fellows as resource information. If the travel restrictions associated with covid continue, and/ or if aquaculture businesses do not "bounce back" in coming months, we will implement a plan to have the fellows develop mock CAHPS plans for fictional facilities. We are hoping that by early 2021 things may begin to approcah a more normal situation, but if not, we will find an alternative mechanism for our fellows to have the experience of thinking through the CAHPs process. Prior to Covid, several commercial farms were pursueing enrollment and were actively participating in pilot programs supported by USDA-VS in different parts of the country. We have no idea when that activity might resume. To our knowledge, many commercial farms which had made significant investment in veterinary infrastructure and animal health have furloughed employees in these departments. It may be some time before these businesses get back to where they were in early 2020. In addtion to providing didactic and discussion support of CAHPs principles and on-farm mplementation (either real or fictious farms) we plan to support the continued development and engagement of our fellows with aquacultrue and related industries. This may be in the form of facilitating participation of local or regional educational or business programs (many of which have been cancelled) as well as supporting specific interests of our fellows by providing contacts and other support to help them engage with the commercial industries in their areas. We also hope to make some progress in the effort to adapt principles of produciton medicine to aquaculture businesses. This has proven more difficult than expected, but there are some ideas being discussed that may be helpful.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? 1. All eight of the practicing veterinarians who were originally recruited into the program in 2018 have remained engaged and active. Seven of the fellows have completed the on-line graduate level certificatre (12 credit hours) entitled "Aquaculture and Fish Health". This has required completion of a course in fish disease diagnosis and treatment (Diseases of Warm Water Fish, FAS 5225), a course in aquaculture production (Aquaculture I, FAS 5015) and two additional courses from a series of electives that can meet the interests of the student. One fellow with a particular interest in shellfish production, was able to complete a course offered at Roger Williams University and apply the work towards the UF certificate program. No similar program in shellfish production was available from the University of Florida. The one student who has not completed the certificate is planning to take one remaining elective and complete the program in spring 2021. All eight fellows completed the on-site practicum designed to support this training and offered by the University of Florida Tropical Aquaculture Lab in 2019. This activity was reported in the progress report submitted Aug 31, 2019. 2. Efforts to reach out to producers were initiated at the Aquaculture America meeting, Feb 9-12, 2020 (Honolulu HI). Plans were in place to have fellows work with producers of ornamental fish (Florida), shellfish (WA) and trout (ID). Pond and sport fish production was being pursed by a fellow located in the mid-west and one fellow had a particular interest in zebrafish production and health management of research colonies. As will be discussed below, all of this ended with the onset of covid-19 in March and we were forced to request a one-year no-cost extension to complete the planned activities in 2021. 3. Extensive on-line and supplemental curricular materials were developed in 2019 to support training of the veterinary fellows. These included modules on shrimp and shellfish production, trout production and health management, as well as the Commercial Aquaculture Health Program Standards (CAHPs) program. An summary of materials developed for fellows in 2019 was provided in the 2019 progress report. A presentation on CAHPs was provided by Dr. Kathleen Hartman (USDA-VS) at the Aquaculture America meeting, with the intent of continuing the development of supplemental materials to support the fellows as they began to work with industry partners. Education was also provided to producers and supporting professionals, including extension specialists, at Aquaculture America. To date, no faclity in the United States has become a CAHPs certified facility, and the process required has yet to be fully approved by USDA-Veterinary Services. Several large commercial producers were participating in a pilot program but much (all?) of that has been halted with the Covid outbreak. This will be discussed in greater detail below, but plans were in place to have our fellows partner with private sector companies, especially those with some level of professional support for animal health, to go through the process of drafting a CAHPS plan for the complany. With the on-set of Covid, many aquacultrue business were hit very hard, especially industries producing high-end food products such as trout. Several companies that had existing or developing professional relationships with our fellows furloughed entire veterinary/ animal health care teams including staff or consulting veterinarians, support staff (biologists and laboratory techicicans) and placed animals on programs requiring minimal maintenance. 4. Development of new skill sets and cross training was an integral part of the on-site practicum offered to fellows in 2019. New curricular materials were developed and guest speakers participated via zoom for live discussions with the class on managing aquaculture practice in rural communiites, economic realities from the veterinary perspective and the produer perspective, and application of telemedicine principles to geographically broad practice areas. Additional efforts are currently in place to develop some basic curricular materials to support this intiative over the coming 6 months so that this will be available to support the current fellows and future veterinarians. As is mentioned below, everything stopped in early March 2020.

Publications

• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Francis-Floyd, R., Yanong, R., Starzel, K., Hartman, K., Watson, C. 2020. Veterinary Fellowship in Aquaculture Medicine: Training Practicing Veterinarians to Serve Aquaculture Producers. Aquaculture America, Feb 9-12 2020. Honolulu HI. Yanong, R. and Francis-Floyd, R. 2020. How To Work With Veterinarians: A Not-So-Secret Secret To Enhancing Aquaculture's Bottom Line. Aquaculture America, Feb 9-12 2020. Honolulu HI. Note that Dr. Yanong presented this twice... once to a veterinary audience and once to a producer group). Hartman, K. 2020. Commercial Aquaculture Health Program Standards (CAHPS) Program - Implementation Update. Aquaculture America, Feb 9-12 2020. Honolulu HI. Hartman, K. 2020. National Veterinary Accreditation Program Module 14: Evaluation of Aquatic Animals for Detection of Reportable Diseases and Pathogens. Aquaculture America, Feb 9-12, 2020. Honolulu, HI.

Progress 09/01/18 to 08/31/19

Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience for year two of this project are the 8 veterinary fellows selected in the fall of 2018 for advanced aquaculture training. Six of the fellows began on-line course work at the University of Florida in the Aquaculture and Fish Health Certificate program in the fall of 2018. The remaining two fellows began on-line training in Jan 2019. All 8 are currently enrolled in the graduate certificate program. The first to complete this component of the training (4 graduate level courses) will earn their certificates in Dec 2019. All fellows are on track to complete the certificate training program by the end of the funded project, August 2020. In addition to formal course work through the University of Florida's distance education program, all 8 fellows came to Florida in June 2019 and participated in a one-week hands on training program. To optimize the use of the fellow's time, additional on-line didactic material was developed to support this program and was made available to thembefore the trip to Florida. This material will remain available to them for the duration of the funding cycle (through August 2020). The fellows had provided strong feedback early in 2019 that they needed to optimize their time away from their respective practices and really wanted the focus to be on experiential training while in Florida. They specifically requested that didactic material intended to support this training in advanced aquaculture medicine be made available to them through the distance education program. We accommodated this request and shortened the instructional time in Florida to 5 full days, plus travel time as needed. This change is discussed in more detail later in this report. The course was offered Jun 24-28, 2019 at the University of Florida Tropical Aquaculture Laboratory located in Ruskin Florida. Content focused on advanced water quality and life support system design and function; fin fish culture/ husbandry and diagnostic evaluation; shrimp production and diagnostic testing; and bivalve production and diagnostic testing. Aquaculture business considerations were included from the perspective of an economist specializing in aquaculture (Dr. Carole Engle) and a veterinarian who had run a full-time aquaculture practice (Dr. Myron Kebus). Record keeping and USDA regulatory considerations were also included. Feedback from the fellows was incredibly positive so I believe we hit the right balance that they were looking for. Within the past month, we have begun reaching out to private businesses to begin the process of pairing up the fellows with business partners. All but one of the fellows has begun to see aquatic clients in their practice. The final year of training was intended toenhance the ability of these veterinarians to work in private aquaculture practice. To date, they have all expressed confidence, they are developing networks and the skill set that suit their interests and needs, and the fact that 7 of the 8 are starting to see patients/ clients on their own is really satisfying.Our target audience has now shifted from the veterinary workforce to aquaculture and other aquatic businesses, hopefully the future clients of our trained veterinarians. For the final year of this project we will be involved in outreach targeted to future employers/ clients for our veterinary fellows. Changes/Problems:1. On-Site Training Program: In the original proposal we proposed a 10-day training program, and during the interview process each candidate was specifically asked if they would be willing to attend a 10-day program in Florida during the summer of 2019. Although all agreed, it became apparent that getting all 8 fellows to come to Florida for a 10-day training was not being well received. There was concern about time away from practice and family obligations. Several draft agendas were circulated to the fellows early in 2019 and there was considerable push back, especially on time commitment. They asked us to streamline the program and have them in Florida for hands-on training that could not be delivered on-line or by other web-based mechanisms. Following considerable discussion, we finalized the agenda that was previously presented. For on-site training we put a lot of emphasis on water quality and life support systems - which uniformly caused the most anxiety among the group. We had specialists from outside the University of Florida record detailed didactic material that was made available to the fellows via a specially created website before they traveled to Florida. This included salmonid and shrimp production and health management/ diagnostics as well as more advanced work on bivalve production and disease management / diagnostics than we usually offer in UF course work. For the short course, we brought in a life support systems expert from Disney Animal Programs, two veterinary pathologists with expertise on finfish (Dill-Okubo) and bivalves (Smolowtiz) as well as a non-veterinary expert in crustacean disease and pathology (Bojko) and an expert in invertebrate physiology (Baker). During the short course, we visited 4 different types of production facilities over the 5-day training period and designed intensive labs focusing on diagnostic testing and necropsy protocols. We brought in more experts than we had originally proposed. Additional training on CAHPS and agribusiness will be included in the fall/ winter work (2019-2020) in which the fellows will be paired with at least one private sector aquaculture or aquatic business. It is our belief that the intended content for the workshop was delivered and the fellows universally responded that the combination of course work, hands-on training, site visits and supplemental pre-recorded lectures resulted in a powerful first year of training. We will intensify resource availability in agribusiness, economics and implementation of the CAHPS program in coming months. Another comment on the development of the on-site training program was the impact of the government shutdown early in 2019. This went into effect as we were trying to finalize the agenda and commitments of instructors for the short course. Two of our cooperators, responsible for CAHPS training and agribusiness, are USDA veterinarians. These individuals were not allowed to discuss work or participate in phone calls, email etc. until the government shut down was resolved. I do believe this had an impact of having less information on CAHPS and the agribusiness program included in the short course. Those of us not directly impacted by the government shutdown did our best to represent this information on the program, but we had to do it in a bit of a vacuum. By the time things were normalized with regard to federal employees we had already blocked rooms at the host hotel and circulated the agenda. At the time we finalized the agenda, it was very unclear whether the shutdown was going to last for weeks or potentially much longer. Further, I think our USDA collaborators were out of their offices for almost two months (?) and I believe this created a back log of work that they were responsible for that may have had a negative impact on the amount of time they were able to commit to this project. I believe we will be able to make up for any deficiencies over the coming fall and winter months as the focus of training shifts to working with business owners and managers. 2. Involvement of a traditional livestock veterinarian with expertise in food animal production did not happen as planned. When the proposal was originally submitted and funded, Dr. Carlos Risco had agreed to collaborate and was very enthusiastic about helping with this aspect of the training. He had been in dairy practice for many years and was very experienced. In recent years he had developed an interest and introductory level of understanding of Florida's aquatic businesses and he could envision how his training in traditional food animal production could "transfer' to aquaculture. Unfortunately for us, he was offered and accepted the position of "dean" at Oklahoma State University College of Veterinary Medicine and he left the University of Florida in March 2018. It was much more difficult to "replace" his expertise on this project than I expected. I went to all of our (UF) food animal faculty, none of whom had ever been on an aquaculture facility, and really was not able to get anyone to bring that expertise to the project. I think the complete lack of exposure to the industries we were asking them to contribute to just made it a much bigger ask than I realized. As an alternative, we brought in Mr. Blayk Michaels from Bass Pro Shops (corporate manager of all live exhibits) to talk about management of the huge collection of aquatic animals that Bass Pro Shops manages using a specially modified computer program called "Oerca". The program was originally designed for management of marine mammal populations in public aquaria. The Oerca corporation has worked extensively with Bass Pro Shops to modify the data base to maintain detailed health records on hundreds of aquariums including acquisitions, health exams/ diagnostics, treatment plans etc. The program is beginning to be uses by some aquaculture businesses. I think this training combined with economic considerations from the perspective of the veterinarian (provided by Dr. Myron Kebus, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and former full-time aquaculture practice owner) and an economic consultant, Dr. Carole Engle (economist and agribusiness consultant specialized in aquaculture) filled the required niche. Further, because one of our fellows is a very experienced dairy practitioner, I believe there is a chance he may help us move some of these ideas forward. It was obvious that he was seeing things through a slightly different lens when we conducted farm visits during the June short course. He looks like he will be working in the trout industry in the coming year so maybe he will become a leader and be able to promote adaptation of tools used in the dairy industry for aquaculture medicine. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?All 8 veterinary fellows are currently enrolled in the on-line graduate "Aquaculture and Fish Health Management" certificate program offered by the University of Florida School of Forest Resources and Conservation, Program in Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences. This certificate program requires that the fellows complete 4 graduate level courses (12 credit hours total). Included in the curriculum are two required courses: Aquaculture 1 (FAS 5015) and Diseases of Warm Water Fish (FAS 5255). Two additional courses are selected from a group of electives. These include: Biology of Fishes (FAS 5203C), Fish and Crustacean Nutrition (FAS 6165), Aquatic Invertebrate Ecological Physiology (FAS6154), Algae Biology and Ecology (FAS 6176), Fish/ Shellfish Histological Interpretation (FAS 6256), Aquaculture II (FAS 6408), Aquatic Animal Conservation Issues (VME 6010) and Aquatic Wildlife Health Issues (VME 6011). One fellow was particularly interested in shellfish production. We do not offer a course in shellfish porduction at the University of Florida, but we were able to arrange for him to take a course offered through Roger Williams University entitled Applied Shellfish Farming. He registered for an independent study at UF so that the experience would generate credit and apply to his certificate program. This was completed in the spring semester, 2019. All fellows are currently on track to complete their respective certificate training programs no later than Aug 2020. In addition, we developed a new curriculum for the fellows entitled "NIFA Summer Workshop for Aquaculture Fellows". This included development of 14 hours of lecture material that was new and did not previously exist at the University of Florida. We had experts from private industry and other academic institutions develop this material for us. The on-line didactic material was available to the fellows via a course website beginning in mid-June, and material was added to the website as it came in. They will retain access to this information for the duration of the funding period, through Aug 2020. In addition, we conducted an on-site experiential workshop at the UF Tropical Aquaculture Lab Jun 24-28, 2019. A copy of the agenda is provided below: NIFA Summer Workshop for Aquaculture Fellows Required Webinars or Recorded Lectures to Precede On-Site Training: Water Quality, Systems Design, Production (8 hr): Advanced Water Quality Considerations (Kent Semmen, Disney Animal Programs) Advanced Water Conditioning (53 min) What's in the Water? (40 min) Total Dissolved Gas Dynamics (15 min) Establishing Nitrification in Fish Systems (36 min) Environmental Homeostasis in Recirculating Aquatic Systems (32 min) Water Quality Emergency Response (15 min) Salmonid / Finfish Production - Stephen Reichley, Clear Springs Foods Overview of Aquatic Animals Raised for Human Consumption (44 min) Practical Approaches to Herd Health in Aquaculture (40 min) Shrimp Production - Andrew Ray, Kentucky State University (1 hr 25 min) Bivalve Production (Parts 1-5) - Shirley Baker, University of Florida Part 1 (10 min): Introduction Part 2 (8 min): Hatchery Production (clams) Part 3 (12 min): Other Examples of Bivalve Production, Global Perspective Part 4 (10 min): Environmental Requirements/ Pests Part 5 (7 min): Impacts on the Environment Disease Diagnosis and Management (6 hr): Disease Management in Salmonid (Trout) Aquaculture - Stephen Reichley, Clear Springs Fish Health Assessment on the Farm (47 min) In-House Diagnostics for Aquaculture (52 min) Selected Parasitic and Fungal Diseases of Cultured Trout (35 min) Selected Bacterial Diseases of Cultured Trout (37 min) Selected Viral Diseases of Cultured Salmonids (31 min) Antibiotics and VFDs in Food Fish Aquaculture (28 min) Diseases of Bivalves (4 lectures) - Roxanna Smolowitz, Roger Williams University Important Diseases of Cultures Oysters, Part 1 (29 min) Important Diseases of Cultured Bivalves, Part 2 (1 hr) Important Diseases of Larval and Juvenile Bivalves (25 min) Hatchery Basics (28 min) ************************************************************ Aquaculture Practicum and Short Course On-Site Training: Jun 24-28 2019 Ruskin FL Training Location: University of Florida Tropical Aquaculture Laboratory (1408 24th St SE Ruskin FL 33570) Host Hotel: The Inn at Little Harbor (611 Destiny Dr Ruskin FL 33570) Mon Jun 24: Introductions, Florida Aquaculture, CAHPS, Record Keeping 8:30 - 9:00 Welcome and Introductions 9:00- 9:30 Introduction to Florida Aquaculture, Ornamental Fish Trade (E Cassiano) 9:30-11:30 Review of CAHPS Principles; Discussion of Projects (K Hartman and K Starzel) 11:30 - 3:00 Farm Tour: 5-D, include discussion of veterinary perspective (Jason Diaz, Erika Brigante) (publix lunch provided) 3:00 - 4:00 Live Case Studies (K Hartman and K Starzel) 4:00 - 5:30 Record Keeping, Distance Management (Blayk Michaels, Bass Pro Shops; via zoom) 5:30 Return to Hotel (dinner on your own) Tues Jun 25: Aquaculture Practice, Water Quality, Life Support Systems 8:30 - 9:30 TAL Farm Tour 9:30-10:30 Realities of Aquaculture Practice (Myron Kebus, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources; via zoom) 10:30 - 1:30 Farm Visit: Segrest Farms (emphasis on systems, biosecurity) (lunch en route, on your own) 1:30 Return to TAL 1:30 - 3:00 Water Quality Lab (Use of DO Meter, HACH Reagents, Secchi etc (R Francis-Floyd, D Pouder, R Yanong) 3:00 - 4:30 Systems Components Lab (Cassiano, Semmen, Yanong) 4:30 - 5:30 Systems Analysis Lab, Part 1 (Yanong, Semmen) Students divided into 4 teams, assigned a system to assess 5:30 Return to hotel (dinner on your own) Wed Jun 26: Advanced Water Quality, Shrimp Farm Visit 8:30 - 10:30 Systems Analysis Lab, Part 2 (Yanong, Semmen) Includes presentations on assigned systems: -Description of system (design, volume, flow, intended purpose, treatment or management options, biosecurity concerns) 10:30 - 6:00 Farm Visit: American Panaid (Pine island FL, lunch en route, on your own) Thurs Jun 27: Diseases and Necropsy (Finfish, Shrimp) 8:30 - 11:30 Fish Anatomy, Clinical Handling and Necropsy Techniques (J Dill-Okubo, D Pouder) 11:30 - 12:30 Lunch (on your own) 12:30 - 2:30 Shrimp Necropsy and Pathology Lab (Jamie Bojko, Kat Starzel) 2:30 - 4:00 Sample collection 4:00 - 5:30 Case Discussions (Francis-Floyd, Yanong, Hartman, Starzel) 5:30 Return to hotel (dinner on your own) Fri Jun 28: Bivalve Production, Necropsy Techniques, Pathology, Economics 8:30 - 11:00 Farm Tour: Local Shellfish Hatchery (Curt Hemmel) 11:00 - 12:00 Bivalve Anatomy Lab (S Baker and R Smolowitz) 12:00 - 1:00 Lunch (on your own) 1:00 - 3:00 Bivalve Necropsy, Diagnostic Sampling and Histology Lab (R Smolowitz, S Baker, J Dill-Okubo) 3:00 - 4:00 Bivalve Pathology Lab (R Smolowitz, J Dill-Okubo) 4:00 - 5:30 Aquaculture Economics (Carole Engle, Business Consultant, via zoom) 5:30 Training concludes All fellows actively participated in the class and all indicated that the training was what they needed, and that it hit the right level of detail as well as bredth. They farm visits and discussions with producers were considered very helpful. The interactive zoom discussions with guest speakers worked extremely well. In additon to the academic training, the one week class created an outstanding opportunity for networking. All of the fellows seem to be regularly communicating with each other, with all of the participating faculty, as well as some of the guest speakers. The short course worked very well. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?At this point, the fellows have been selected and probably about 75% of their training has been completed. They have responded with incredible enthusiasm. One of the areas that they seemed to be very uncomfortable with when the training began was Life Support Systems and Water Quality Management. They are so much more comfortable with this now. They understand system components, what different pieces of equipment do, the basics of how they should be placed in line (i.e. system design) and have some basic trouble shooting skills. They understand constraints of aquaculture businesses and have some creative ideas on how to use their personal expertise and interests to serve this clientele group effectively. Seven of the 8 fellows are seeing aquatic clients on their own initiative, and all seem eager for the final year of training where they are "paired" with different businesses and prospective employers. Our current job is to now complete the "pairing" commitment. Some aquatic businesses have been very receptive to having the fellows play some role in their operation. Others have been much more reluctant and cautious. One of the struggles with aquaculture industries is that they have often learned to make things happen "on their own". Many of these companies are run by small business owners and they may be extremely reticent to bring in "strangers" to see how their operation works. We are moving slowly, but we are making progress and I think we all feel that this is going to happen. Each fellow is unique with regard to their skill set, their access to prospective business partners (based on geography as well as available time) and their specific interests. Making this final piece of the project work is our current focus area. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?1. Implementation of Commercial Aquaculture Health Program Standards (CAHPS) on commercial farms and businesses. One of the cooperators on this project is in the process of re-writing and updating the CAHPS farm/ facility checklist for the aquaculture fellows (and other user groups). This document will enable producers, veterinarians, or federal veterinary medical officers to produce a CAHPS site-specific health plan. This document should be ready for distribution to the fellows by late September 2019. The information will be provided as a pdf document. We also plan to produce a recorded webinar on the topic, or an interactive zoom presentation if schdules would accomodate this. The fellows are expected to be able to design a site-specific CAHPS plan during the final months of training and to present this in a palatable manner to a business owner. 2. The priority for the final year is to work with aquaculture producers and aquatic business owners to create employment opportunities for the fellows. This effort is in progress and will be facilitated by personal outreach to producers/ clients we work with; outreach using trade associations and producer groups (i.e. the National Aquaculture Association); and outreach via participation in regional and national meetings that would be attended by aquaculture producers and aquatic business owners. This target audience needs to be educated on what a CAHPS program is and how it could benefit their business; what these trained veterinarians can offer them; and we must continue to find mechanisms to bridge the concern about proprietary information within the industry. These businesses often feel that the way they do things is unique and an important component of their success. This mindset can be a barrier to allowing people they don't know, even skilled professionals, to work at their facility in the capacity we are hoping for. With that said, if the professional is effective these barriers can dissolve quickly because the business owner realizes new economic or production success. 3. Development of additional educational or training materials will be done on as-needed basis to support the aquaculture fellows. The development of a guide for implementation of a site-specific CAHPS program has been previously mentioned. We expect additional information on economics and business management to be developed in the coming months. This will be one-on-one and will focus on individual business interests. The fellows will have access to a consultant (Dr. Carole Engle) that they can use to refine programs designed for individual businesses or facilities. In addition, all fellows are expected to complete the on-line "Aquaculture and Fish Health" graduate certificate program offered by the University of Florida by the end of the summer semester 2020 (August 2020). This will be an important deliverable for this project. At this time all fellows are on track to accomplish this. Meetings with their primary mentors will be scheduled this fall to ensure things are progressing on schedule. 4. Efforts to incorporate classical "herd health" or preventive medicine strategies from traditional livestock production into the aquaculture training have not been as effective as envisioned. Finding a bridge for this expertise (between traditional livestock production and modern aquaculture) has proven very difficult (see discussion in the final section of this report). With that said, the bridge may be a product of this program. One of the trainees is a skilled dairy practitioner with many years of experience. During the summer short course in Jun 2019 he demonstrated an ability to think a little differently about aspects of aquaculture agribusiness than the rest of us. In the short term we intend to meet this objective by working with our economics and business management consultant, but in the longer run having a veterinarian with this (preventive and production medicine) world view coupled with expertise in modern aquaculture could result in significant forward momentum in this arena.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? 1. Following a national search, 8 practicing veterinarians were selected as "USDA-NIFA Aquaculture Fellows" working on a graduate certificate in "Aquaculture and Fish Health" through the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine and School of Forest Resources and Conservation Program in Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences. The 8 fellows were selected in August 2018 (previous report) and 6 of them enrolled in one or more graduate course through the UF distance education program in the fall of 2018. The remaining two fellows started taking classes in Jan 2019.Most of the fellows have completed 3 of 4 courses required for their graduate certificate, and some of them are on track to receive the certificate in Dec 2019. All fellows are on track to complete the training and be awarded their certificates by Aug 2020. All fellows have indicated that the on-line training has been valuable. The fellows are regularly communicating with each other to determine which courses may be best for their individual interests. We have worked with one fellow who needed specialized training in molluscan aquaculture that was not available through the University of Florida and he was able toobtain that training from another institution. Credit was made available through UF and the work will count towards certificate requirements. Supplemental educational materials for implementation of CAHPS training with private sector business partners are being prepared for distribution to the fellows in the fall of 2019. 2. We have been working with aquaculture producers in Florida to introduce the fellows and explain how their training has the potential to benefit individual farms. We have also been using our connections on a national level to help the fellows connect and gain access to aquaculture producers in geographic areas that they are positioned to serve. During the upcoming year, our goal is to have each fellow work in a meaningful way with at least one commercial aquaculture enterprise. Currently, opportunities are being explored with trout farms in the Pacific Northwest, shellfish producers in the Pacific Northwest, finfish, alligator and shrimp producers in Florida, a large zebrafish colony (in Florida) is exploring production opportunities and may use one of the fellows for veterinary services or health consultations, game fish producers in the Midwest are starting to work with one of the fellows, and private fish owners in more urban areas are being served by several fellows in their respective communities. The approach is working, but slowly. It is exciting. More effort is in progress to get the private sector to "buy in" to having the fellows work with them in the coming year. 3. As mentioned, we developed 14 hours of recorded didactic material to create needed content that we did not have available. Details on these lectures are provided below. This was primarily focused on salmonid production (which we do not have in Florida), bivalve production, shrimp production and diagnostic considerations/ disease descriptions for these species. This material was all provided by invited guest lecturers who had expertise that we did not have at UF, or who had material that would be beneficial to the fellow's training that was not currently included in a UF course that they would be able to take. In addition we developed a one-week hands on short course that included advanced water quality wet labs; diagnostic/ disease sampling necropsy labs for finfish, bivalves and shrimp; economics; record keeping/ management; and practice management as well as site visits to a large commercial production facility for fin fish; a large commercial wholesale facility for ornamental fish (freshwater and marine); a large shrimp farm and a small clam hatchery. A full day was spent discussing the CAHPS program and implementation of a CAHPS program on individual private farms. Additional supportive material for this topicis in development by USDA-VS and will be provided to the fellows this Fall as they begin working on cooperating farms and production facilities. 4. We have been very successful providing cross training with professionals working in various aspects of aquaculture and aquatic businesses. Although we had a cooperator with extensive experience in dairy practice in the original proposal, that individual withdrew from the project due to a change in employment. Despite significant effort, we were not able to identify a new cooperator with expertise in "herd health" from the commercial dairy or terrestrial livestock industry. Fortuitously, one of our fellows has this expertise and he is effectively beginning to blend what he has learned in dairy practice with the information he is learning about aquatic business management. He may be our go-to for this expertise in the future, perhaps by the end of this training program. We also brought in someone from the private sector who spoke to the fellows (via ZOOM) on record keeping and detailed health management strategies in a large corporate setting. I do believe we are accomplishing the goal, just not by the precise mechanism we proposed. The economics and business management information has been provided and will continue to be part of the final year of training.

Publications

Progress 09/01/17 to 08/31/18

Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience during the first year of the project was veterinarians in private practice (recent graduates (2013 to present) preferred but not required) and aquaculture businesses. The goal for the first year was to recruit veterinarians to aquaculture practice as a means of diversification of their scope of practice. This involved a national effort to advertise and promote the fellowship opportunity which is described in more detail below. Faculty involved in the project attended several national meetings, presented information on the program as a platform talks, by interviews with various publications, by phone conversations with interested parties and by personal conversations at meetings and other venues. Multiple aquaculture businesses were targeted to try to match potential fellows with corporate partners in their geographic area and also with livestock of interest to the practitioner. We hope that partnerships created for the purpose of training the fellows will carry over into professional affiliations following the completion of the two-year training program. We also hope that as veterinarians are recognized for the knowledge base and skill set they bring to the aquaculture business, that businesses not directly involved with this project will also seek out veterinary services. Changes/Problems:Recruitment of the fellows was more challenging than expected, but we succeeded in meeting the goal of recruiting 8 fellows from different geographic regions and with interests in serving diverse aquaculture businesses. Six of the eight fellows met the preference for "recent graduates" which means they graduated between 2013 and 2018. Efforts to recruit 8 fellows who had active practice in "agricultural animal production" was more difficult. We actually only had three applicants to the program with this type of practice. We had interest from several other rural practitioners but they ended up not applying for the fellowship positions. I think there were several reasons for this. We put more emphasis on recruitment of "recent graduates" than on recruitment of veterinarians in "agricultural animal production" so when individuals called who had been out of school for longer than 5 years we did not really encourage them to apply to the program as strongly as we might have. The two individuals who did not meet the "recent graduate" preference were already practicing in areas with significant aquaculture production and were able to demonstrate industry contacts and support. Another consideration for on-line training for people living in rural areas is access to high speed internet. We did not consider this at the time the proposal was written, but this was a problem for at least one of the fellows. The issue has apparently been resolved with assistance from our technical support staff, but there was concern that the individual might have to leave the program because of this. Finally, our production medicine faculty member accepted a position at another institution early in 2018 and resigned from the project. We have tried to recruit a replacement for that expertise, but are lacking formal commitment. We hope to resolve this within the next few months. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?As mentioned above, seven of the selected fellows have been accepted into the Aquaculture and Fish Health Certificate program offered by the University of Florida/ IFAS through the School of Forest Resources and Conservation. These individuals are all currently enrolled in one on-line class and are working towards completion of the certificate requirements. The eight fellow will begin the on-line training in January 2019. We hope to have all fellows complete the certificate training program by Dec 2019. A 10-day on-site workshop is being planned for summer 2019 and will be hosted by the University of Florida/ IFAS Tropical Aquaculture Laboratory. Efforts are in place to develop supplemental educational materials or identify sources of additional training (if it is not available from UF/ IFAS) to meet the goals of each fellow. In addition, a general presentation on aquaculture practice, including information on this program, was presented at a meeting of beef cattle practitioners in Apr 2018 (see above). How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Nothing Reported What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?During the coming year, we will complete construction of mentoring committees and pair the fellows with at least one aquaculture business. In addition we will construct and deliver the 10-day on-site training at the UF/ IFAS Tropical Aquaculture Laboratory during the summer of 2019. Finally, we are in the process of identifying opportunities for training beyond UF that may enhance the experience of some fellows. The aquaculture training program is national in scope, and due to geographical considerations, Florida is not ideal for training in cold water aquaculture (ie salmonids, some molluscs). We were aware of this when the proposal was developed, and now that the fellows have been identified, we can create supplemental experiences (beyond UF) to ensure their training is comprehensive and appropriate for their target industry.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Objective 1: Following a national search, 8 veterinarians were recruited to the aquaculturetraining program. The goal was to recruit individuals who were recent graduates (2013 to present) and practicing in an agricultural animal setting. Of the 8 fellows selected, 6 met the criteria of "recent graduates" and 3 met the criteria of "current employment in agricultural animal production practice". Two additional fellows were familiar with population medicine/ management, although not specifically in an agricultural setting. One of these worked in shelter medicine and one in laboratory animal medicine. Of the 8 fellows selected, six had significant experience in aquaculture or fish medicine so that they did have a good idea of how these industries worked. Another individual with no formal training in aquaculture was able to demonstrate efforts to serve and educate himself about a major aquaculture industry in his practice area. Seven of the fellows enrolled in the UF Aquaculture and Fish Health certificate program for the fall 2018 semester and are taking their first course. The eighth fellow will enroll in the program and begin taking course work in January. All fellows have been assigned a primary mentor from the faculty participating in this project. Efforts to establish a 3-person mentoring committee, which we hope to include an industry representative for each fellow, are in progress. Objective 2: Outreach to aquaculture producers has been initiated. We are in the process of identifying at least one aquaculture business for each fellow to work with that meets their needs (and interests) for training and with the hope of developing a long-term working relationship. Objective 3: A 10-day Florida-based workshop is being planned for summer 2019. Part of the planning process includes identification of the needs of each individual fellow, based in part on their interests, and developing supplemental educational materials to meet that requirement. We are considering partnering with institutions in other states to facilitate training on species that we do not have here in Florida. For example, one fellow intends to practice in the salmonid industry, but we have only one production facility currently in development in the state. We have identified at least one potential partner who may be able to assist us in meeting this need. Objective 4: We have lost our "production medicine team member" due to that person taking a job at another institution. We are actively searching for a replacement. We hope to have this person identified and on the team by the end of 2018. This change is discussed below.

Publications