A recent posting by Michelle on this website referred to a paper (sustainability-of-fishmeal-and-oil) that provided information on the sustainability of fish meal and fish oil in aquaculture diets.
A recent article in a recent reLAKSation newsletter contributes to this debate. Some of the relevant, interesting parts of the article are paraphrased below (the full article can be seen on the Callander McDowell website here and by following the prompts to reLAKSation No. 350).
Various environmental groups are targeting aquaculture for its use of fish meal and, in their view, the consequential depletion of wild fish stocks. Detractors of aquaculture persist with arguments many of which have no basis in either fact or logic; it’s frequently a case of “I’ve made up my mind so don’t confuse me with the facts”.
In fact, the use of fish meal in manufactured aquaculture diets simply represents a different and, importantly, a more efficient presentation of the natural food of fish. The logic behind the increasing pressure on feed manufacturers to substitute the fishmeal content of aquaculture feeds (or a large part of it) with vegetable proteins has some merit, but only within reasonable limits.
The use of fishmeal in fish feeds has dramatically increased in recent years; however, around one-third of world fishmeal production is used outside aquaculture in terrestrial animal feed destined for pigs and poultry.
So, to put this into context, environmental groups are urging the replacement of fishmeal with vegetable protein, while terrestrial animals that naturally eat vegetable protein, are fed with marine protein from fishmeal. Hmmm. Some dodgy logic there.
Surely, the first step to reduce the fishing pressure on fish destined for fishmeal production should be that fishmeal should be removed from land animal feeds and fed to farmed fish, which, by the way, utilise the protein far more efficiently. The issue of substituting some of the fishmeal in aquaculture diets can then be properly considered.
Perversely, rather than reducing the terrestrial demand for fishmeal, it seems that (in the EC) there is actually pressure to increase it. The reLAKSation newsletter reports that “a team of veterinary experts from the European Commission have approved a project reintroducing fishmeal in the feed of young ruminant animals such as calves and lambs”.
One reason for doing this is that meat, milk and eggs from farm animals fed fishmeal are beneficial for human health. The obvious question is why they wouldn’t promote the increased consumption of oil rich farmed fish instead?