Less fishy business found in fish farming industry

Farmed fish are eating more plants, fewer wild stock, according to new paper

Twenty years ago, as farmed salmon and shrimp started spreading in supermarket freezers, came an influential scientific paper that warned of an environmental mess: Fish farms were gobbling up wild fish stocks, spreading disease and causing marine pollution.

Last week, some of the same scientists who published that report issued a new paper concluding that fish farming, in many parts of the world, at least, is a whole lot better. The most significant improvement, they said, was that farmed fish were not being fed as much wild fish. They were being fed more plants, like soy.

In short, the paper found, farmed fish like salmon and trout had become mostly vegetarians.

Synthesizing hundreds of research papers carried out over the last 20 years across the global aquaculture industry, the latest study was published in the journal Nature.

The findings have real-world implications for nutrition, jobs and biodiversity. Aquaculture is a source of income for millions of small-scale fishers and revenue for fish-exporting countries. It is also vital if the world’s 7.75 billion people want to keep eating fish and shellfish without draining the ocean of wild fish stocks and marine biodiversity.

At the same time, there have long been concerns among some environmentalists about aquaculture’s effects on natural habitats.

The new paper found promising developments, but also lingering problems. And it didn’t quite inform the average fish-eater what they should eat more of — or avoid.

The aquaculture industry is too diverse for broad generalizations, said Rosamond Naylor, a professor of earth systems science at Stanford University and the lead author of both the 2000 cautionary paper and the review published last week.

“The aquaculture industry is so diverse (over 425 species farmed in all sorts of freshwater, brackish water, and marine systems) that it doesn’t make sense to lump them all together into a “sustainable” or “nonsustainable” category,” Naylor said in an email. “It has the potential to be sustainable — so how can we ensure it moves in that direction?”

Global aquaculture production has more than tripled in the last 20 years, producing 112 million metric tons in 2017, the most recent year for which statistics are cited in the paper. China leads the way, producing more than half of all farmed fish and shellfish worldwide. Outside of China, Norway and Chile are big players, producing mostly farmed Atlantic salmon, while Egypt produces mostly the Nile tilapia. Most fish produced in Asia is consumed in Asia, meaning that it serves as an important source of protein for citizens of those countries.

The study also found that the production of farmed seaweed and bivalves, like oysters and clams, had greatly expanded as well.

The study also found that freshwater aquaculture today accounts for 75% of farmed fish directly consumed by humans.