North Central Regional Aquaculture Center

The North Central Regional Aquaculture Center (NCRAC) is one of the five Regional Aquaculture Centers established by Congress that are administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA). NCRAC is an administrative unit that serves the twelve states in the North Central Region: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. **NCRAC Mission** The North Central Regional Aquaculture Center (NCRAC) was formed in February 1988. It is one of five regional aquaculture centers administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Cooperative State, Research, Education, and Extension Service. The NCRAC is administered by Iowa State University. The mission of the Regional Aquaculture Centers is to support aquaculture research, development, demonstration, and extension education to enhance viable and profitable U.S. aquaculture which will benefit consumers, producers, service industries, and the American economy. NCRAC is an administrative unit that relies on leaders in the aquaculture industry through an Industry Advisory Council for direction in its programs. A Technical Committee works with the Industry Advisory Council to formulate programs on priorities. Regional programs are meshed with activities of other centers to avoid duplication. Teams of aquaculture specialists from Midwest universities, public agencies, and the private sector develop and implement projects to solve priority problems. A Board of Directors oversees administration and management of NCRAC's programs. NCRAC serves 12 states in the heartland of America: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. This region is home to over a quarter of the U.S. population, a large fraction of which are concentrated in major metropolitan areas such as Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, and Cleveland. The region's geography spans approximately 800 miles south to north and over 1,000 miles east to west. Aquaculture in the region is characterized by great diversity with over 50 different species of aquatic animals being cultured by more than 1,000 producers of food fish, baitfish, and fish for stocking into recreational water bodies. These producers are themselves highly diverse, ranging from well established producers who have made a significant capital investment and are interested in ways of reducing production costs while increasing output to those who could be classified as newcomers, who need training, capital, and an awareness of the potentially high risk, high investment, and low returns that most producers encounter. Since its inception the Center has concentrated on funding projects for emerging species that have good potential as food fish for production in the North Central Region, such as yellow perch, walleye, and hybrid striped bass. In addition, NCRAC has supported projects on sunfish, salmonids, crayfish, baitfish, aquaculture wastes and effluents, aquaculture drugs, and more recently tilapia. All funded projects are directed at high priority industry needs that include development of new technologies and application of research findings that will benefit diverse constituencies. Therefore, research and extension activities have been integrated into all funded projects to develop and implement educational outreach materials and programs. Every year the Center prepares an annual progress report that contains reports for all ongoing, or recently concluded, NCRAC-funded projects. These reports highlight accomplishments and impacts of the various projects that the Center has funded. All of these annual reports are available at NCRAC’s Web site. A brief synopsis for some of the projects follows.