Like Raising Tigers For Meat: Study Finds Staggering Waste Of Wild Fish To Feed Farmed Salmon
Shoppers’ appetite for salmon is causing millions of tonnes of nutritious mackerel, sardines and anchovies to be wasted as fish feed, according to new research. Its authors say farming salmon is an inefficient way to produce nutritious seafood, calculating that half to 99% of minerals, vitamins and fatty acids in the wild-caught fish are not retained when fed to farmed Atlantic salmon.
They say removing wild-caught fish from aquaculture feed production and diverting them to human consumption, and farming more carp and fewer salmon, could increase global seafood production by 6.1m tonnes, while leaving 3.7m tonnes of fish in the sea.
Lia ní Aodha, of Feedback Global, which worked on the report said: “Salmon farming is a good example of how deeply inefficient and inequitable the global food system is. Much of the nutrient-rich fish used to feed farmed salmon is sourced from regions in the global south, where food insecurity is endemic, while the salmon is mainly sold to consumers in high-income markets in Europe, North America and parts of Asia.”
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Dr James Robinson, of Lancaster university, who was involved in the study, said: “Aquaculture, including salmon farming, has an important role in meeting global food demand, but nutritious wild fish should be prioritised for local consumption rather than salmon feed, particularly if they are caught in food-insecure places. “Support for alternative feeds can help this transition, but we still need more data on the volumes and species used for fishmeal and fish oil, as this can show where salmon farming places additional pressure on fish stocks.”
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/02/wild-fish-stocks-squandered-to-feed-farmed-salmon-study-finds
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