As farmed fish industry grows, so does dependence on wild fish
By Beth Daley
Globe Staff
Having fish for dinner tonight? Chances are fifty-fifty it came from a farm.
A new online report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences notes that aquaculture is expected to hit a landmark by the end of this year - supplying half of the total fish and shellfish people eat in the world.
 Salmon being fed at a Maine Fish farm (file photo/AP) |
But that growth in aquaculture is placing pressure on wild fish stocks because farmed fish are often fed less expensive wild fishmeal and fish oil to help them grow faster and become more flavorful. While the industry has worked hard to reduce the amount of fishmeal they use per fish, there is so much more farming going on, aquaculture is increasingly taking a larger piece of the fishmeal and fish oil produced around the world.
The international study, led by Rosamond L. Naylor of Stanford University examined aquaculture trends in several species. Vegetarian species, such as Chinese carp and tilapia began being fed more fishmeal in the 1990s to increase yields. That changed between 1995 and 2007 when farmers reduced the share of fishmeal in carp diets by 50 percent and in tilapia diets by nearly two-thirds. Still, in 2007, those fish farms together consumed more than 12 million metric tons of fishmeal.
“Even the small amounts of fishmeal used to raise vegetarian fish add up to a lot on a global scale,’’ said Naylor.
One of aquaculture’s largest consumers of wild fish is salmon farms, where up to five pounds of wild fish is used to produce one pound of salmon. Salmon is one of the most popular farmed fish in the world, in large part because they contain fatty acids that can combat heart disease.
The researchers said a four percent reduction in fish oil fed to salmon would translate into needing only about four pounds – not five – to produce a pound of salmon. The scientists also pointed to other ways to feed fish, such as using protein from grain and extracting fatty acids from single-cell microorganisms and genetically modified land plants.
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We could feed the Van Jones inststed of fish oil.
Nah, not even Communists deserve to be turned into Soylent Green Fish Feed.
"Fish farming," at least for salt water fin fish is about as green as, um, "clean coal." Hey, I like my fish sticks, but it may be time to put the foot down and seriously reduce fishing pressure for a couple decades in order to allow world fish stocks to start to recover. They will recover if allowed to.
There are some salt water fish farms that make sense -- Connecticut's century old operation of oyster beds (until pollution largely closed them) represented good management. A species simply encouraged in an area they naturally occured, not the un natural confinement of fish resulting in pollution from waste, diseases spreading, etc.
And you can make the case for fresh water farms which can be managed more easily to isolate their impact from wild systems -- such as vegetable fed cat fish farms.
It is interesting to notice the similarity between the cattle and the farmed fish industry. In an effort to improve on nature, and gain more profit, substances are fed to the food source. That creates more problems, such as ingesting too many antibiotics (which are also given to farmed fish because living in such proximity made them more vulnerable to disease). Most of us have stopped eating farmed fish but are also limiting our consumption of wild fish because many of those have too many heavy metals to be healthy for us. I wonder if the heavy metal content of fish meal is being monitored. So now, in order not to deplete the wild fish population, "they" have the "brilliant" idea to go after smaller ones, the ones upon which, no doubt, the entire food chain depends on. Yup--that'll really deplete sea life. Of course, we could all become vegans. But then there'll be more of us with Celiac Disease because of the tinkering with wheat in order to produce more. And so on... Does anyone think or talk any more about population control??? And greed?
It's pretty obvious that feeding 5 pounds of wild fish to produce one pound of farmed fish is completely unsustainable. When fish stocks collapse (anyone remember the collapse of the cod stocks off Atlantic Canada in the early 90's?), it has devastating impacts on local economies and the ecosystem.
This is purely an economic problem. Fish meal is a cheaper source of high quality protein that other sources like corn gluten meal, soy protein concentrate, etc. The same goes for fish oil which is cheaper than algae oil at this time.
Typical environmental article. Did not once mention how aquatic farms must be lessening the stress on wild fish. Instead, all it talked about was doom and gloom.
I, for one, refuse to eat any of these farmed (salt water) fish or even take fish oil supplements regardless of their supposed benefit. The taste: mushy
the antibiotics: harmful; the severe overfishing of the world's fishstocks: destructive. Heck, I'm not a vegan and spent some time raising cows in Maine, but there's no comparison to the damage fishfarming causes with blatant disregard to our future.
What we are continuing to do is work our way down the food chain as we over fish everything. The proliferation of farm raised fish is largely a result of vastly depleted stock of game fish. Cod are commercially extinct in many parts of the Atlantic and may never recover. The same is true for many other species. Working down the chain, we eventually end up at the menhaden, which is one of the primary sources of fish meal and oil. Guess what, it is now being over fished and stocks are expected to crash within a few years if we continue the current catch rate. What comes next??????
I have to agree with you there Pete. My brother is in "the industry" as it is often refered to and he has told me many a fish story that would make your fins curl. I just dont see why they are raising fish on farms. When I was young I dont seem to recall hearing "Old McDonald had a Fish"
If you want the "fish oil" eat purslane. Grows wild, had an article in the globe last week. Also called garden cress. Same oil sans fish.
i refuse to eat farm-raised salmon, or any other "farmed" variety for that matter. i've seen the operations with my own two eyes and know the ecological havoc they wreak on the seafloor, in and around the rearing pens. give me wild or nothing with my salmon, regardless of price.
No, it is more efficient for fish to be fed fish meal on a farm than in the wild. they eat something like 3 times as much in the wild. Aquaculture is always improving and is the future and each problem is clear and being worked on. A good site for the politics of fish feed is http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/getfile?dDocName=STELPRDC5064651
No, it is more efficient for fish to be fed fish meal on a farm than in the wild. they eat something like 3 times as much in the wild. Aquaculture is always improving and is the future and each problem is clear and being worked on. A good site for the politics of fish feed is http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/getfile?dDocName=STELPRDC5064651
wild salmon is healthier than farm-raised. this is noteworthy.
This makes me sad and afraid. Sad for the fish, and afraid that the world is simply overpopulated with idiots and we're basically breeding ourselves to starve and decimate the planet.
If it takes five pounds of wild fish to produce one pound of farmed-raised fish, then aquatic farms must be increasing, not lessening the stress on wild fish. Also, for those who call Van Jones Communist, they should read the actual ten planks of the manifesto and they would see that America is already communist, and at least Van Jones stood up against the NWO, so he's relatively less Communist than say Pelosi.
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