Aquafeed experts are warning climate change and fishery management restrictions could affect wild catch of forage fish and lead to a 70 percent decline in the output of certain high-value farmed species if the production of alternative feed ingredients is not scaled up.
The warnings have come in a new study titled “Unstable Supply and Future Shortages Of Wild Forage Fish Heighten Risks to Global Fed Aquaculture Production,” which suggests the supply of forage fish used to make fishmeal and fish oil could fall by 20 percent in the near future due to climate change and fishery management restrictions.
This, in turn, could cause a decline of up to 35 percent in overall fed aquaculture output, with an even steeper 70 percent decrease possible for carnivorous premium species, like grouper and salmon, according to the study.
“This is a practical moment to secure feed supply and unlock new value streams,” said Ling Cao, the study’s lead author, a professor at Xiamen University, and a judge of the Future of Fish Feed (F3) Challenge. “Treating fishmeal and fish oil as strategic, finite resources, while accelerating alternative innovations, can help sustain aquaculture growth and reduce exposure to supply variability.”
Written by researchers from Xiamen University, the University of Massachusetts Boston, the University of Arizona, and the University of Tasmania, the study found that despite increasingly efficient use of fishmeal and fish oil, the aquaculture industry needs to secure an additional 1.8 million metric tons of alternative feed ingredients each year to keep pace with rising global demand for high-value farmed seafood.
Failure to do so, the study said, could heavily impact global seafood pricing and slow growth.
Therefore, the study calls for an “acceleration” in the use of alternative ingredients, such as microbial, algal, insect-based, and next-generation plant proteins and algae oils. It also calls for new feed ingredients to be paired with “advances in breeding, feed formulation, and circular waste streams.”
However, there are barriers to the adoption of alternatives, such as insect feed, which has struggled to reach price parity with traditional fishmeal and secure regulatory approvals necessary to scale up.
