A global study by Conservation International and the WorldFish Center has identified aquaculture as key to feeding growing urban populations.
The study by the international non-profit organisations, released at an Asean conference on aquaculture held last week in Bangkok, assessed 75 fish farming systems from 18 different countries.
Aquaculture, otherwise known as fish farming, is the controlled cultivation of freshwater and saltwater animals or plants.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that aquaculture is growing at a rate of 8.4 per cent annually, making farmed fish one of the fastest growing food supplies in the world. The industry is now worth more than US$100 billion and supplies more than half of the seafood consumed globally today.
Asia accounts for 91 per cent of that supply. WorldFish predicts production will reach 79 to 110 million tonnes of fish by 2030, compared to 69 million tonnes in 2008.
The study’s authors noted that the environmental impacts of aquaculture were increasing with the industry’s growth, but that these were still less than the impacts from other, less efficient sources of protein such as pork and beef. Pork and beef consumption results in more food waste because fewer of the animal parts are used as food sources, and their cultivation contributes more phosphorus and nitrogen emissions to the environment than farmed fish.
The environmental costs of aquaculture can include water pollution, spread of disease to wild fish populations, the overuse of antibiotics, and harmful effects on biodiversity – but these can be controlled, said the study’s authors. According to WorldFish Center, most of these issues arise from badly managed projects.
Concerning biodiversity issues, WorldFish said that when projects are properly designed, sited and managed, aquaculture can have little or no effect. It further noted that the majority of the world’s aquaculture is located on inland ponds, away from sensitive coastal zones where biodiversity is of most concern.
The study’s authors observed that the wide variation of environmental impacts from region to region demonstrates there is ample opportunity for improvement.
China, which alone supplies 64 per cent of the world’s farmed fish, was shown in the study to be less efficient than other aquaculture countries such as Thailand.
Vietnam, another large Asian supplier of farmed fish, earlier this year committed to raising its aquaculture standards to meet uniform criteria, called the Code of Conduct for Responsible Aquaculture (COC), set by the FAO. An official from the country’s fisheries directorate said at the time the move would deter problems such as last year’s red-listing of Vietnam’s farmed tra fish, a type of catfish found in the Mekong Delta. He was referring to the product’s placement on a list of fish deemed unsustainable by international non-profit WWF. WWF later removed the fish from the list.
Despite national level efforts to ensure sustainable fish farming methods, the country continues to struggle with illegal operators. Last week, Vietnamese news sources revealed the extent of damage to the nation’s beaches due to illegel shrimp hatching ponds that pollute local ecosystems and drain freshwater supplies.
Dr Stephen Hall, director general of WorldFish Center and lead author of the report said: “There must be a wider exchange of knowledge and technology, with policies and action to promote sustainability and investment in research to fill the knowledge gaps. These efforts can lead to a more ecologically sustainable industry - an important goal, if we are to meet the world’s future needs and demands for fish.”
Most of that demand will be in Asia’s cities, said WorldFish scientist Mike Phillips, who co-authored the report. “China, India and the rest of Asia with their growing middle classes are where we can expect demand for fish to rise most significantly,” he said. He added that South and Southeast Asian countries such as China and Vietnam would provide most of the additional supply to meet this demand.
The world’s population is expected to reach nine million by 2050. Most of that growth will be in urban areas in developing countries, according to the United Nations. Experts have said the swelling middle classes in those regions, who tend to consume more than poorer groups, will strain food resources on a global scale.
“With governments in the region looking to aquaculture to meet demand for animal protein, we need to better understand the environmental costs of expanding aquaculture,” said CI’s executive director for Indonesia Ketut Putra.
“This report will be tremendously helpful in showing us which species and production systems we should favour to keep environmental costs down,” he added.
