Aqua Knowledge (Platform to Help Ornamental Fish Exporter & Breeders)

Abstract

The ornamental fish industry is a widespread and global component of international trade (import & export), fisheries, aquaculture and development. The growth of ornamental fish international trade (in exports) has surged at a constant rate annually, at an average rate of 14% per year since 1985. Developing countries hold more contribution toward the global export value of ornamental fish, as it provides a vital contribution to the economic growth of developing countries. In the 1950's Sri Lanka established an ornamental fish industry. Domestic ornamental fish industry mainly trades with exporting marine, fresh water, brackish water fish species and marine invertebrates. Sri Lankan ornamental fish industry and the exporters have a unique advantage over other countries who are engaged in ornamental fish industry, Sri Lanka has fishes which are bio diversified. Despite the fact that the country has a unique advantage over its competitors, there are various problems and challenges faced by the domestic industry and the traders. Identified problems are, quality of the exporters and breeders, effectiveness of existing methods used by the domestic industry to transfer knowledge among these stakeholders, an increase in the number of breeders in the domestic market than the exporters, disease management and environment management. The proposed solution helps the exporters and breeders to overcome the challenges faced and encourage more new businesses (exporters and breeders)to enter into the market and grow the domestic market. It helps the users to improve their knowledge and skills in the areas they lack. The system/website will be developed using PHP for the website and MySQL for the main database. With the purpose of displaying the key features of the proposed solution, a prototype was built for the demonstration.