Both the Producer and Premium Associate membership categories joined the A533;Supply/Demand ForumA533; which took place in Miami during the mornings of May 26/27th and will be repeated again at the Vienna conference at the start of October. The presence of buyers and sellers sitting together at a U-shaped table enabled different perspectives to be presented and argued around key business questions. These included topics like the demand for salmon feed and fishmeal in 2009 (taking account of the salmon farming problems in Chile) as well as the drivers on fish oil demand and its relationship with rapeseed oil. The meeting opened with a presentation on the economic environment from the Chilean consultant Jorge Quiroz before Wenpu Jin spoke in detail about 2009 demand for fishmeal in China. On Tuesday afternoon 26th May all members were free to attend the technical session, which highlighted a presentation by Ursula Letona from PeruA533;s Ministry of Production about the new system of maximum catch limits per vessel followed by Andrew JacksonA533;s overview on current priorities, including an update on IFFOA533;s Responsible Supply scheme, the eco-efficiency of transforming wild fish to farmed fish using fishmeal, the new EU import regulations for fish oil etc., and finally some excellent results from the recent pig feed trials in China comparing fishmeal with soya.
