ORTO

Project "ORTO" data sheet

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 Project objective

Meeting the 70% food gap predicted by 2050 will require new sustainable food production. Aquaculture has strong potential, but fragile marine ecosystems have been significantly damaged by human influence, including through Eutrophication. The resulting ‘dead zones’ reduce the already limited area of coastal waters available for current aquaculture approaches. Sea Harmony has produced ORTO (Ocean Reef Tower Oases), an integrated aquaculture concept adding automated harvesting and scalable production to the company’s patented “Pisa Reef“ vertical mussel reef technology. Pisa Reefs are ideal locations for mussels, which rapidly reverse Eutrophication, restoring deoxygenated “dead zones”, seeding robust food chains, and sequestering carbon as effectively as the same area of forest. Suspended between ocean surface and bottom at depths down to 100m, Pisa Reefs avoid problems from sea traffic, weather, surface pollution or bottom contamination with limit other aquacultures. This opens up exploitation of the vast area of the continental shelves. Continental shelf aquaculture has the potential to exponentially scale food production from today’s limited volumes. ORTO transforms Pisa Reefs into sustainable, efficient, low-carbon, multi-species aquaculture hubs: a game-changing approach that greatly expands markets and opportunities for Europe. Revitalising coastal waters and communities, we anticipate halving EU Mussel imports within 12 years of project start; earning us €256M in direct revenue and creating 272 jobs. In ORTO Phase 1 (6 months), we will: demonstrate Harvester and Mobile Production Unit prototypes; enhance IP strategy to foster innovation and global exploitation; improve market knowledge with better metrics, competitive analyses, and pricing; secure up to 5 commercial trials for phase 2 ecosystem production replication (at minimum viable size); perform detailed planning and secure co-financing for phase 2; and refine our analysis of opportunities and risks.