Description: This is
a VOA Special English Education Report.
See text below
Text:
There are schools of fish, and there are schools for
fishermen. The Cod Academy is a year-long program in
Maine, one of the New England states in the American
Northeast. The academy is new. The idea is to train
current or former ocean-going fishermen to become
fish farmers. Sebastian Belle is director of the
Maine Aquaculture Association. That group launched
the Cod Academy with the University of Maine and
other partners. Mr. Belle says the academy teaches
all about managing a floating farm. "One of the
things we've been teaching the students is how to
feed the fish and not overfeed the fish," he says.
"You want to give them enough feed, and not waste
any."The students practice at eight fish pens about
a kilometer and a half from shore. These circular
pens are fifty meters wide and covered with netting
to keep out seabirds. Each one holds as many as
fifty thousand cod. A partner in the academy, Great
Bay Aquaculture of New Hampshire, operates this fish
farm. Most of the cod will become someone's meal
somewhere in the world. Bill Thompson is fifty-nine
years old. He served in the Navy and worked as a
commercial fisherman. He says the Cod Academy made
him a believer in fish farming. "Even if the wild
stocks came back to their fullest capacity, they
still wouldn't be able to feed the world. So I think
this is the way of the future."He and his son were
among the first four students who graduated in
August. Like any business, fish farming has
financial risks. Program director Sebastian Belle
says students have to develop a marketing and
business plan before they can graduate. Graduates
can receive financial assistance from the Maine
Aquaculture Association to start their own cod farm.
But they will be expected to raise about half the
money toward any project.Mr. Belle says the Cod
Academy is based on programs to retrain displaced
herring and tuna fishermen in Norway and Japan.
These government-sponsored programs started more
than thirty years ago. He says "It's never been done
before in America and we're trying to see if it's a
model that has some potential. " Maine had just one
commercial cod farm when the students graduated last
month, but Mr. Belle hopes things will change. "It's
a native fish to Maine. The growing conditions in
Maine are very good for cod, and it's kind of a
natural choice for us as a state." For VOA Special
English, I'm Alex Villarreal.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
