Why remote fish disease diagnosis is hot at the top but cold at the grassroots
Remote fish disease diagnosis is "hot at the top but cold at the grassroots"
Today, when "prevent disease before it occurs, treat it early when it does" has long been a well-known "secret" throughout the aquaculture industry, how to prevent and how to treat so as to better cure the disease is the issue of greatest concern to farmers and disease experts. How can disease be controlled while also ensuring the safety of aquatic food products? How can the chaos of rushing to any doctor when illness strikes be curbed? How can the disease problems of grassroots farmers be solved more professionally?
Aquaculture people have long been searching painstakingly for a way to solve the problem. In recent years, a remote fish disease diagnosis and treatment system that has been gaining strong momentum seems to have let them see a glimmer of hope. Two computers, one microscope and one network cable - a simple combination that builds a bridge of communication among experts, grassroots aquatic technology workers and farmers.
"This system has been used since 2003, and now prefecture-level cities, key counties and some pharmacies across the province are equipped with the remote fish disease diagnosis and treatment system," Chen Wen, director of the Guangdong Provincial Aquatic Animal Disease Prevention and Control Center, told the reporter.
Just how miraculous is this system? And where can it take the diagnosis and treatment of aquatic diseases?
Food safety gives rise to "expert clinics"
What do farmers fear most? Disease is unquestionably first. Watching fish they worked so hard to raise turn to nothing overnight is a regrettable and painful thing. In recent years, aquaculture diseases have shown trends of many affected species, many types of disease, wide epidemic range and urgent conditions. When many farmers, and even grassroots aquatic technology workers, are at a loss in the face of a sudden disease, they urgently need experts to point the way, but in the past this was often made remote by distance, putting expert diagnosis beyond reach. To avoid unnecessary losses, farmers thought of so-called local experts, and sometimes these really did have an effect. But what followed was the deterioration of aquatic food safety. "Many folk local experts claim they can cure all diseases, but in fact many times they just increase the dosage without limit, which is very unreasonable," Chen Wen said.
It was precisely under these circumstances that Chen Wen got the idea to adopt this system. "When a company from Suzhou first approached us about this system, we thought it was very good, so we adopted it." Aquatic disease expert Dr. Wang Yingeng of the Yellow Sea Fisheries Research Institute felt the same. "Now the farming area is large, while the number of experts is limited, and once communication is poor it easily leads to disease outbreaks. But if experts go down to the field or farmers come to the door, it often takes time and effort and delays the best time for treatment."
The remote fish disease diagnosis and treatment system precisely solves the dilemma currently faced by aquatic disease work. It is equipped with corresponding disease charts and diagnostic methods; one need only input the characteristics of the disease into the computer and the system will automatically issue a prescription. For difficult and complicated cases, the disease symptoms can also be sent directly to experts through the system, and after diagnosis sent back to grassroots technical staff. "The remote fish disease diagnosis and treatment system not only gives experts and farmers a channel for direct dialogue, but because the methods are more scientific and safe medication is controlled, it also adds another layer of protection for food safety."
Farmers only care about efficacy
Such a good system should, logically speaking, be very welcome among farmers and grassroots technical staff. But the actual situation is not like that. The reporter learned from interviews that some monitoring and reporting points equipped with the remote fish disease diagnosis and treatment system basically rarely use this "very useful" equipment. "I very much hope to get guidance from experts through the system, but sometimes my questions are sent up and there is no reply for a long time," a grassroots technical worker who had contact with this system told the reporter. In addition, the lack of a corresponding institutional framework for remote diagnosis and treatment has turned complete sets of equipment into decoration. Some monitoring points installed the system in 2007, but the frequency of use was astonishingly low. "So far it has only been used 5 or 6 times, and later the camera broke and it has not been used since," Jian Hejun of the Zhaoqing Aquatic Animal Epidemic Prevention and Quarantine Station told the reporter.
For farmers, what they value most is how to cure the disease; as for how it was cured, they do not seem to care much. The reporter randomly interviewed several farmers, and they all said they had not heard of remote fish disease diagnosis and treatment. "Don't know about it, as long as it can cure the disease that's enough, we don't pay attention to the rest," said Lu Jianlian, a farmer who raises more than 10 mu of mandarin fish in Shishan Town, Nanhai District, Foshan City.
The "indifference" of farmers and grassroots technical staff left Chen Wen, who had originally held great expectations for this system, somewhat disappointed. "Maybe they think this system is too omnipotent, believing it can cure all diseases. But this system can currently only propose solutions for some basic diseases, and it still has many places that need improvement."
Technological progress must also come with a change in ideas. "Farmers need to know that this system is first of all for monitoring food safety and quality, and only second for treating disease," Chen Wen said. "Those cases that ignore food safety and abuse or misuse drugs may seem very effective, but they create hidden dangers for the safety of aquatic products. Only when farmers realize this will they understand the benefits of this system."
Combining treatment and monitoring is the ultimate goal
Remote fish disease diagnosis and treatment has found a convenient path for disease treatment, making disease diagnosis and treatment standardized and reasonable. At the same time, it also lays the foundation for future monitoring and prevention of aquatic diseases.
"Through this system we can collect disease information and carry out disease statistics, tracking and research," Wang Yingeng told the reporter. "The statistics and analysis of information are the key to disease forecasting. Once we understand clearly the location, time, disease type and other circumstances of disease outbreaks, we can achieve a rough prediction of disease."
Compared with the "coldness" toward the remote diagnosis and treatment system in terms of disease treatment, farmers are full of expectations for disease forecasting. "If it could roughly predict the occurrence of disease just like a weather forecast, that would be great."
"To achieve monitoring and ultimately forecasting of aquatic diseases, relying on the remote diagnosis and treatment system alone is not enough," Chen Wen said. "We also need corresponding institutions and to raise the technical level of grassroots aquatic technology staff. Only in this way can the occurrence of disease be truly reflected." But as things stand now, this still seems very hard to achieve. In addition, the planning and layout must also be carried out strictly according to scientific methods. "Generally, points are set up in areas where aquaculture is relatively concentrated and in key counties and cities, so that one town or county can have one monitoring point."
"Monitoring and prevention are long-term work that require a great deal of manpower, material resources and financial resources, and as things stand now, we have not yet reached the ability to carry out aquatic disease forecasting," Chen Wen told the reporter.
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"Monitoring and prevention are long-term work that require a great deal of manpower, material resources and financial resources." Animal disease prevention and control faces a very severe situation. If investment is insufficient, the disaster facing humanity will be even greater!
---------------------
The establishment and improvement of the system is arduous and long, and systems for aquatic diseases are even harder to predict. It still requires analyzing specific problems case by case; the system can only solve part of it.
---------------------
If it could really be promoted widely, this would be pretty good!
---------------------
If you don't pay, of course it won't work
---------------------
I hope we can have a project like this here
---------------------
It feels rather idealistic
---------------------
That is selling equipment.
Aquaculture people have long been searching painstakingly for a way to solve the problem. In recent years, a remote fish disease diagnosis and treatment system that has been gaining strong momentum seems to have let them see a glimmer of hope. Two computers, one microscope and one network cable - a simple combination that builds a bridge of communication among experts, grassroots aquatic technology workers and farmers.
"This system has been used since 2003, and now prefecture-level cities, key counties and some pharmacies across the province are equipped with the remote fish disease diagnosis and treatment system," Chen Wen, director of the Guangdong Provincial Aquatic Animal Disease Prevention and Control Center, told the reporter.
Just how miraculous is this system? And where can it take the diagnosis and treatment of aquatic diseases?
Food safety gives rise to "expert clinics"
What do farmers fear most? Disease is unquestionably first. Watching fish they worked so hard to raise turn to nothing overnight is a regrettable and painful thing. In recent years, aquaculture diseases have shown trends of many affected species, many types of disease, wide epidemic range and urgent conditions. When many farmers, and even grassroots aquatic technology workers, are at a loss in the face of a sudden disease, they urgently need experts to point the way, but in the past this was often made remote by distance, putting expert diagnosis beyond reach. To avoid unnecessary losses, farmers thought of so-called local experts, and sometimes these really did have an effect. But what followed was the deterioration of aquatic food safety. "Many folk local experts claim they can cure all diseases, but in fact many times they just increase the dosage without limit, which is very unreasonable," Chen Wen said.
It was precisely under these circumstances that Chen Wen got the idea to adopt this system. "When a company from Suzhou first approached us about this system, we thought it was very good, so we adopted it." Aquatic disease expert Dr. Wang Yingeng of the Yellow Sea Fisheries Research Institute felt the same. "Now the farming area is large, while the number of experts is limited, and once communication is poor it easily leads to disease outbreaks. But if experts go down to the field or farmers come to the door, it often takes time and effort and delays the best time for treatment."
The remote fish disease diagnosis and treatment system precisely solves the dilemma currently faced by aquatic disease work. It is equipped with corresponding disease charts and diagnostic methods; one need only input the characteristics of the disease into the computer and the system will automatically issue a prescription. For difficult and complicated cases, the disease symptoms can also be sent directly to experts through the system, and after diagnosis sent back to grassroots technical staff. "The remote fish disease diagnosis and treatment system not only gives experts and farmers a channel for direct dialogue, but because the methods are more scientific and safe medication is controlled, it also adds another layer of protection for food safety."
Farmers only care about efficacy
Such a good system should, logically speaking, be very welcome among farmers and grassroots technical staff. But the actual situation is not like that. The reporter learned from interviews that some monitoring and reporting points equipped with the remote fish disease diagnosis and treatment system basically rarely use this "very useful" equipment. "I very much hope to get guidance from experts through the system, but sometimes my questions are sent up and there is no reply for a long time," a grassroots technical worker who had contact with this system told the reporter. In addition, the lack of a corresponding institutional framework for remote diagnosis and treatment has turned complete sets of equipment into decoration. Some monitoring points installed the system in 2007, but the frequency of use was astonishingly low. "So far it has only been used 5 or 6 times, and later the camera broke and it has not been used since," Jian Hejun of the Zhaoqing Aquatic Animal Epidemic Prevention and Quarantine Station told the reporter.
For farmers, what they value most is how to cure the disease; as for how it was cured, they do not seem to care much. The reporter randomly interviewed several farmers, and they all said they had not heard of remote fish disease diagnosis and treatment. "Don't know about it, as long as it can cure the disease that's enough, we don't pay attention to the rest," said Lu Jianlian, a farmer who raises more than 10 mu of mandarin fish in Shishan Town, Nanhai District, Foshan City.
The "indifference" of farmers and grassroots technical staff left Chen Wen, who had originally held great expectations for this system, somewhat disappointed. "Maybe they think this system is too omnipotent, believing it can cure all diseases. But this system can currently only propose solutions for some basic diseases, and it still has many places that need improvement."
Technological progress must also come with a change in ideas. "Farmers need to know that this system is first of all for monitoring food safety and quality, and only second for treating disease," Chen Wen said. "Those cases that ignore food safety and abuse or misuse drugs may seem very effective, but they create hidden dangers for the safety of aquatic products. Only when farmers realize this will they understand the benefits of this system."
Combining treatment and monitoring is the ultimate goal
Remote fish disease diagnosis and treatment has found a convenient path for disease treatment, making disease diagnosis and treatment standardized and reasonable. At the same time, it also lays the foundation for future monitoring and prevention of aquatic diseases.
"Through this system we can collect disease information and carry out disease statistics, tracking and research," Wang Yingeng told the reporter. "The statistics and analysis of information are the key to disease forecasting. Once we understand clearly the location, time, disease type and other circumstances of disease outbreaks, we can achieve a rough prediction of disease."
Compared with the "coldness" toward the remote diagnosis and treatment system in terms of disease treatment, farmers are full of expectations for disease forecasting. "If it could roughly predict the occurrence of disease just like a weather forecast, that would be great."
"To achieve monitoring and ultimately forecasting of aquatic diseases, relying on the remote diagnosis and treatment system alone is not enough," Chen Wen said. "We also need corresponding institutions and to raise the technical level of grassroots aquatic technology staff. Only in this way can the occurrence of disease be truly reflected." But as things stand now, this still seems very hard to achieve. In addition, the planning and layout must also be carried out strictly according to scientific methods. "Generally, points are set up in areas where aquaculture is relatively concentrated and in key counties and cities, so that one town or county can have one monitoring point."
"Monitoring and prevention are long-term work that require a great deal of manpower, material resources and financial resources, and as things stand now, we have not yet reached the ability to carry out aquatic disease forecasting," Chen Wen told the reporter.
---------------------
"Monitoring and prevention are long-term work that require a great deal of manpower, material resources and financial resources." Animal disease prevention and control faces a very severe situation. If investment is insufficient, the disaster facing humanity will be even greater!
---------------------
The establishment and improvement of the system is arduous and long, and systems for aquatic diseases are even harder to predict. It still requires analyzing specific problems case by case; the system can only solve part of it.
---------------------
If it could really be promoted widely, this would be pretty good!
---------------------
If you don't pay, of course it won't work
---------------------
I hope we can have a project like this here
---------------------
It feels rather idealistic
---------------------
That is selling equipment.