Development of an early-warning system for risk management in aquatic products market, China

Aquaculture is being promoted as a means of generating an alternative source of income for farmers and in enhancing food security over the past two decades in China. But the technological advancement in the production and storage of fishery products has exceeded the development of efficient market demand over the past one-decade. As a result, participants within the fishery industry have frequently found themselves facing more market risk brought by increased variable and declining prices or other factors, negatively affected the fishery industry. So it is necessary to provide early warning to aquaculture market risk. An early-warning system for aquaculture market risk was developed by China Agricultural University, which is granted by both the National Nature Science Foundation and China Academy of Fishery Science. Based on questionnaire and interviews, we analyze the decision problems, user needs and the difficulties involved in developing the system. The system architecture and its components, such as database, rule base, method base and model base and their functions are described. At last we discussed on end-user contributions and the problems we had encountered during development and promotion.