Potential for by-product in feed
IFFO, the Marine Ingredients Organisation, said an estimated 35 million tonnes of raw material could be available for marine ingredients production, should all by-product be collected.
This increases to a total of 45 million tonnes being available in 10 years’ time, with the increase principally coming from the growth in aquaculture and the availability of by-product from processing aquaculture species, IFFO said in its first annual report, published recently.
Currently, nearly 20 million tonnes of raw material are used annually in the production of marine ingredients.
Future availability of fish oil is not predicted to rise proportionately, as a large proportion of aquaculture product is likely to have a low oil yield, with freshwater species dominating growth in Asia.
The findings came from a project on by-product use in fishmeal and fish oil production, commissioned in 2014 and led by Professor Dave Little at Stirling University.
The project was to provide an analysis of raw material availability and estimates for the global quantity of fishmeal and fish oil that could be produced assuming that all by-product could be utilised as raw material.
The figures provided by this research will help to inform discussions about the future development of the industry, and are important in emphasising the increasing contribution that by-product will make to raw material supply.
The organisation’s report also gives summaries of core areas of IFFO’s work, including stakeholder engagement, technical projects and market research.
In 2016, IFFO expanded its methods of data collection by gathering production and/or trade annual data for 109 countries; monthly data for 30 countries and weekly data for around 10 countries.
Data is collected from multiple sources to ensure accuracy, with the most important source being IFFO’s members, which represent more than 50 per cent of the total world production and between 75 per cent and 80 per cent of the total annual trade of marine ingredients worldwide.
IFFO presented the report at its annual meeting this month, in Barcelona.