More fish being farmed than beef
The news came as no surprise to aquaculture insiders, but the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) made a big deal of the latest figures from the United Nations and U.S. Department of Agriculture. But in true fashion, the agency couldn’t resist injecting a negative comment about salmon farming, quoting a staff member of the Environmental, Non-Government Organization “Earth Policy Institute in the U.S.” who suggests that feeding small pelagic fish to farmed salmon is a “drain on wild fish”. Janet Larsen misses the point like many others that keep pushing for the consumption of “wild” fish rather than farmed species like salmon. The fact is that it takes a whole lot more “wild” fish resources to produce a certain quantity of “wild” salmon than it takes to grow the same amount of farmed salmon. And contrary to her assertions, most pelagic fish used to make fish feed are managed sustainably.
Said one of the CBC reports;
It's another sign of the fish farming boom, taking place across the globe, which has also seen more and more universities dedicate programs to aquaculture. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that fish farm production has grown by six times over the last 20 years. "There's a demand for fish protein,” said research scientist Cyr Couturier of the Marine Institute at Memorial University of Newfoundland. Couturier's research focuses on reducing the environmental impact of aquaculture.
He says he's not surprised beef has fallen behind food produced on fish farms. "It's a good healthy source of animal protein, and I think that's another reason why there's a drive to produce more on the planet,” Couturier said.
Everything from fish to seaweed and shellfish is farmed today. And not surprisingly, China leads the world in aquaculture. "I think farmed fish will be part of the answer in terms of food supply,” said Janet Larsen, research director with the Earth Policy Institute in the U.S. Aquaculture is the least energy-intensive means of producing animal protein, but not all fish farms are created equal, says Larsen.
Some threaten ecologically-sensitive areas while farming certain species, such as salmon, causes a drain on wild fish. "We're overfishing a lot of our smaller fish stocks like menhaden, herring or sardines so that we could grind them up into fish meal and fish oil to feed to these farmed fish,” she said. Larsen predicts that, for the first time, more fish and seafood will be produced on farms this year than caught in the wild, meaning the need for sustainable aquaculture is greater than ever.
