This research estimates that wild fish used for aquaculture feed is 307% higher than industry has previously claimed. When including fish mortality, this figure rises even higher. These findings challenge the food security and sustainability implications of aquaculture.
Abstract
The growth of animal aquaculture requires ever more feed. Yet, fish and crustacean farming is argued to be sustainable because wild fish use is low and has improved over time. Here, accounting for trimmings and by-products from wild fish in aquaculture feed, and using four different sources of industry-reported feed composition data, we find ratios of fish inputs to farmed outputs of 0.36 to 1.15—27 to 307% higher than a previous estimate of 0.28. Furthermore, a metric that incorporates wild fish mortality during capture and excludes unfed systems raises the wild fish mortality–to–farmed fish output ratio to 0.57 to 1.78. We also evaluate terrestrial ingredients in aquaculture feeds. Widely cited estimates of declines in wild fish use from 1997 to 2017 entailed a trade-off of more than fivefold increase in feed crops over the same period. Our assessment challenges the sustainability of fed aquaculture and its role in food security.
Reference
Spencer Roberts et al. ,Feeding global aquaculture.Sci. Adv.10,eadn9698(2024).DOI:10.1126/sciadv.adn9698
Read more here. See also the TABLE essay, Out of sight, out of mind: addressing the invisibility of seafood in food system debates
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