The Pilot Station celebrates 20 years since its inauguration, a date that serves to remember that moment, to take stock of various achievements such as completing the sardine cultivation cycle in Aquaculture and making plans for the future.
On March 2, 2002, the Pilot Station for Fish Farming (EPPO) was inaugurated. The station project was being prepared since 1984 and appears as a desire to expand the IPMA Aquaculture facilities, which operated in the Port of Olhão.
EPPO started to work with the species that were already produced in the previous facilities (bream, sea bass, bream, sole and shrimp), but quickly expanded the range, developing projects with different species of bream (saphia bream, red bream, bream), snapper, grouper and croaker.
It pioneered the aquaculture cultivation of sardines and more recently is working with sea urchins and emerging species such as the lily.
Half a hundred people currently work at the station, in the most diverse roles and projects.
The EPPO building was built in Quelfes, in a project designed by the architect Pedro Vaz, and was inaugurated precisely 20 years ago, by the then Secretary of State for Fisheries José Apolinário, in the presence of the president of IPIMAR at the time, Marcelo de Vasconcelos, and from the Southern Regional Research Center, Costa Monteiro.
The EPPO project was conceived by Maria Helena Barahona Fernandes (FCUL), vice president of INIP. and by the station director from its creation to the present day, Pedro Pousão-Ferreira.
For the future, Pedro Pousão underlines the expansion of activity and the strengthening of IPMA's position as a major promoter of R&D in the area of Aquaculture.
The involvement in the recently created structure (S2AQUAcoLAB) reinforces precisely the commitment in this domain.
In the plans for the future, the director emphasizes the study and expansion of the building to house more laboratories and workstations.
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