Fishmeal: Major Limiter of Aquaculture Growth
June 16th, 2008 by AndrewThe global aquaculture industry currently accounts for over 45% of all seafood consumed.
That figure has been projected to increase to 75% over the next 20 years. While the industry is truly on a dynamic growth path, it is nonetheless dangerously dependent upon fishmeal as a key protein constituent in fish and shrimp diets.
The aquaculture industry is not alone however, as cattle, poultry, pig and other intensive forms of animal production use fishmeal as a primary protein source in their diets. Currently ten countries produce 80% of all world fishmeal supply, and three of those suppliers are net importers of product, thereby reducing supply, not increasing it. These include the U.S. and China.
Fishmeal production reached heights of 4.4 million tonnes in 2002 and was consistently above 3.3 million tonnes between 2001 and 2005. A report providing the details may be reviewed here.
Production of fishmeal also decreased 20% in 2006, and prices rose from USD $750/metric tonne to over USD $1400/metric tonne. In 2007 it failed to exceed 2000 tonnes. Is this just a blip or is the downturn in production aligned with other trends? U.S. growers experienced four feed price increases within a 16 month period.
A staggering 25% of all world fish production goes into the low value added pursuits of fishmeal and fish oil production!
Due to the fact that the regions responsible for the majority of world supply are isolated geographically from major markets, every tonne of fishmeal travels an average of 5000 km before it reaches the end user. Obviously, particularly in the face of the present oil crisis, this has enormous economic implications for global intensive animal protein production markets.
As far as aquaculture is concerned, clearly the future demand for fishmeal is on a rapidly increasing track. With world fish stocks, and baitfish stocks in particular, in decline, the stage is set for a bottleneck that could severely limit industry growth.
In order to head off such a bottleneck, the global aquaculture industry must eliminate its dependence upon fishmeal (and fish oil) and develop a portfolio of sustainable dietary protein sources.
The very industry that has been called upon to bridge the gap between demand and wild supply is now dependent upon wild stocks of fish for the vast majority of its protein source .
In order to expand and succeed in the future, the industry must develop its independence from fishmeal and wild sources of feed.
As a theme, the Finfish blog has carried an array of postings about using ‘lower forms’ of life as dietary inputs. Diet ingredients must be produced from sustainable sources to allow the unhindered expansion of global seafood production.
What are other ways in which this problem might be countered? Lets think outside the square on this one!
Key criteria to consider as innovation drivers are as follows:
- maximise capacity for local production
- maximise capacity to meet volume requirements
- minimise cost of production
- maximise ease of handling feed input
- minimise flavour impact
What are the other criteria we must include?
Tags: aquaculture growth, cattle, chicken, chile, china, fish meal, fish stocks, pig, poultry, protein, sustainability, US
Posted in Growth Inputs. Permalink for this post: permalink.
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August 24th, 2008 at 8:49 pm
There is no doubt that the use of fish meal in aquaculture is an area of potential risk, due to both availability and the increasing costs associated with catching and shipping it around the world.
Solutions to fish meal inclusion are multi-faceted. This includes use of plant protein sources from more and more plant species, breeding plants with a better amino acid profile and less antinutritional factors, utilising animal by-products (blood meal from land animals for example), chosing fish species with lower marine protein requirements (eg. herbivores), and most recently, new innovative sources of protein.
These new protein sources are main focused around microbial and algal species. There is a lot of work going into this area and a number of companies are now trying to get into this space. However, cost will be an issue with most of these manufacturers.
However, converting low grade land animal by-products into high value aquafeed protein with the appropriate amino acid balance may be seen as a innovative and low cost way to achieve the high levels of fish meal replacement necessary. Another great thing about this is that these microbial protein manufacturing facilities can be located very close to the major feed manufacturers locations to minimise transport costs, which are only going to increase over time.
A company in Asia is developing this type of product . at present with a lot of interest from the Asian regions largest integrated feed company, CP. It will be interesting to see the uptake of this type of product in the aquafeed sector when commercialised in the next 6 months.
Regards,
Dale