Ian Vázquez-Rowe is the director of Red Peruana Ciclo de Vida y Ecología Industrial (PELCAN) and a researcher at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. He was also a speaker at this year's IFFO Members Meeting in Miami, Florida, U.S.A., on 16 and 17 April 2024.
SeafoodSource: You are an expert in life-cycle assessments (LCAs). Why should seafood companies care about them?
Vázquez-Rowe: Companies should know about LCAs so they can maintain competition. If I'm overfishing, if I'm not taking care of the content of microplastics in my fishmeal, or if I have dirty processes lowering the grade of my product, it’s a problem for my bottom line.
So, companies should be interested in keeping the natural systems they depend on for their resources within sustainable standards. Of course, that is challenging because when we are talking about the biotic extraction of fish stock from the ocean, that's pretty straightforward because we've had, for years, the maximum sustainable yield, and that shows us what is being underexploited and what is being overexploited.
But, when we're talking about other things like microplastic content or other types of plastic released into the ocean, we don't have any clear benchmarks. This used to happen years ago with climate change; we didn't have a benchmark or metric to calculate the impact we were generating based on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and then carbon footprinting appeared, giving us another benchmark; we know that if Plant A is emitting 25 and Plant B is emitting 50, that's more or less a comparable metric that we can use to understand or to measure the level of impact or damage from different actors. LCAs try to make that standard, not only for carbon footprint or water use, but across the whole set of impacts a company or fishery has.
SeafoodSource: What percentage of the seafood industry has performed a life-cycle assessment to measure their impacts?
Vázquez-Rowe: Most of the seafood already is using some type of LCA methodology. But, if the question is how many are doing full LCAs, it’s very few. Most of the companies with industrial fleets in Northern Europe and to a lesser extent Spain, Portugal, France, and probably Canada and Australia, are doing some work on it.
In the case of Peru, which is my area of specialty, there have been LCA studies into fishmeal production in the past, but they have gotten outdated. It's an important ingredient for aquaculture feed, so to have good LCA studies on aquaculture, you also need good LCA studies on one of the main resources that is nourishing aquaculture, which is fishmeal and fish oil.
SeafoodSource: You recently finished an LCA of the Peurivan anchoveta fishery, which is a major source of global fishmeal and fish oil production. What did you find?
Vázquez-Rowe: The main thing that we have identified is that environmental impacts due to fishing restrictions have remained more or less stable between previous research done between 2014 and 2017, with data from 2010 through 2012, and with more current data.
Anchoveta is a species that schools in very dense patches in the ocean, and the schools are pretty close to the coast – around 25 to 30 miles out. It's pretty easy for a fleet to get out there and then bring the fish back to the fishmeal plant.
So, actually, the fishing stage is very low-carbon intensity with respect to most other fisheries worldwide, and comparing previous data to the data for 2019 through 2021, we see there's no major difference; the fishing effort has not changed.
However, for the processing stage, we do have some changes, mainly because there's been substitution in terms of the fuel. Around 15 or 20 years ago, the fishmeal plant in Peru often had quite dirty systems that used heavy oils to heat and cook the fish meal. Now, they've got better controlled systems in which the heating occurs, often using natural gas, creating more stable temperature conditions. That change has lowered the carbon footprint of the processing stage by 10 percent to 18 percent. Not all the fishmeal plans have done this transition, but if you look at the big companies, most of the plants, especially the ones that produce most, have done this.
SeafoodSource: You have disclosed that you worked with Austral Group on this study. Did you work with other companies as well?
Vázquez-Rowe: We have some references from other companies which we are not allowed to disclose. But, their data seems to be more or less in the same direction as Austral; we haven't found major differences.
SeafoodSource: So, is it the case that, like many other seafood supply chains, a large part of the carbon footprint of Peruvian fishmeal and fish oil comes from getting the product to wherever it’s being consumed?
Vázquez-Rowe: Studies that have analyzed food production systems generally do not find a heavy impact in terms of GHG emissions. And, in my experience, transportation-related emissions represent 5 percent to 12 percent of the Peruvian anchoveta fishery’s total related emissions. However, because fishmeal’s fishing and processing impact is very small, relatively, marine freight on major routes to China, Europe, and America is now 20 percent to 30 percent of its total GHG impact, even though it’s not very high in an absolute number.
SeafoodSource: So, on a large scale, would you say the Peruvian fishmeal industry is pretty low carbon?
Vázquez-Rowe: It's probably one of the lowest-carbon animal protein systems in the world. It's quite upstanding, and it’s something people don't expect. Regarding conditions like El Niño, which started in 2023, the anchoveta seeks out cooler waters and disperses to different areas, which highly impacts catch rates and the fishing fleet has to use more fuel to find the fleet. But, outside of this phenomenon, which hits once every 18 to 25 years, we can actually say it's a very low-carbon protein product.
SeafoodSource: Aside from El Niño, is climate change affecting dispersal or catch rates of Peruvian anchoveta?
Vázquez-Rowe: I think that's happening worldwide as fish seek cooler waters, and we haven't had access to sufficient historical data to see whether that’s having an environmental impact for Peru’s anchoveta fishery. I’m sure it’s also affecting Peru’s other big fishery – the jumbo squid – where we know when the ocean surface becomes very warm, catchability is affected.
SeafoodSource: Is climatic migration of fish stocks something that the fishery is paying attention to? Is it taking any proactive measures?
Vázquez-Rowe: I think the industry is aware of the trend, and there’s another trend they’re paying close attention to, which is that the average size of the anchoveta is decreasing. That's an interesting thing because according to Peruvian law, an anchoveta is considered an adult when it's 12 centimeters long, but researchers have found they can actually be considered adults at 10.5 or 10.7 centimeters.
Exploiting fisheries about the maximum yield is influencing that because we've seen that in tuna also, with the average size decreasing in the past few decades. So, that's not really surprising, but it could be maybe something related to climate change. I don't think it's so notable that anchoveta schools are going farther south yet. Also, the anchoveta fishery doesn't behave like other fisheries; it doesn’t have differences in annual behavior but, rather, is very influenced more by El Niño and La Niña, which puts noise into the statistical modeling and makes larger-scale movements more difficult to detect.
Currently, most of Peru’s anchoveta is caught in the region north of Lima, while the southern stock only accounts for 10 percent to 15 percent of catches, but there is a very high fishmeal capacity in the south, which is not being used much right now. In the north, Austral has around 100 working days per year, while in the south, the number goes down to 40 or 50 days. In the next few decades, that may flip as the school moves south in search of colder waters.
SeafoodSource: Regarding the smaller sizes of the anchoveta, is that having any impact on yield or oil content or quality?
Vázquez-Rowe: Yes. What we are finding is that oil content is also going down.
SeafoodSource: Does that impact the life-cycle assessment?
Vázquez-Rowe: Definitely, because that influences the amount of fish oil that you are extracting, and if you don't extract much fish oil, the coefficient is going up because you've got less fish oil at the end of the day and the LCA is based on yield per ton of fishmeal or fish oil. With our newer data, from 2019 to 2021, we didn’t see a noticeable drop in yield, but we need more historical data and better-quality data to know for sure what the impact is.
SeafoodSource: Are there any other points of interest or concern you noticed during your work on the LCA for Peru’s anchoveta fishery?
Vázquez-Rowe: Plastic content in fishmeal is an important issue. Studies that have been done in Peru show that there's not an abnormally huge problem, just marginally higher than European fish, for example. But, it's something that we need to keep tracking because the oceans have been a sink of plastic, and there’s no technology coming any time soon to clean it up. That's something important thing to bear in mind.
On the positive side, many industrial vessels are beginning to add on-board cooling systems, which are very low carbon impact and which also help preserve the fish at a better temperature and quality. There are also advances in wastewater treatment. Around 20 years ago, there was barely any regulation, and it was quite nasty to be around a fishmeal plant; nowadays, at least the industrial plants have improved quite a lot in terms of the quality of their operations.
SeafoodSource: There is so much global reliance upon the Peruvian fishmeal supply – from Norwegian salmon aquaculture to Chinese pig farming – but it sounds like that's not the worst thing from a climate perspective, considering its LCA is showing pretty good metrics?
Vázquez-Rowe: When we talk about carbon footprint and most air quality indicators, what we're seeing is that fishmeal is a more sustainable option than, for example, soybeans. Soybean expansion is generating a lot of deforestation and other agriculture damage with the use of herbicides and excessive eutrophication of soil. Then, we have alternative ingredients, which have their own set of challenges. Also, it’s important to remember Peru’s anchoveta fishery only represents around 20 percent to 30 percent of total fishmeal and fish oil production globally.
Now, that doesn't mean that fishmeal firms don't need to decarbonize; we need to continue with decarbonization. Something that could happen in the near future is electrification of processing plants. This is something that has not been a priority in the industry until recently because we are coming off a decade of cheap natural gas worldwide. With current international conflicts, that has changed the calculus of the industry, and Peru produces a low-carbon electricity option; that could be a further step toward decarbonization.
The most important thing at the end of the day for the Peruvian fishmeal industry is that it needs to keep a healthy fishing stock, which will ensure there is sufficient biomass to keep it healthy for future years. At the same time, you're going to maintain that fishing strategy in which you go out in a very optimized way, fishing a dense school that you can extract easily and take to port without too much carbon use, which is something that, unfortunately, we do not see in European fishmeal production, which has a much higher fuel-usage ratio.
SeafoodSource: The cancelation of the main season last year was met by a lot of frustration from the industry. Do you think the fishery is well-managed?
Vázquez-Rowe: I do think it could be improved, but the precautionary strategy that has been implemented for the past 20 years approximately has been very helpful. It used to be a wild goose chase, fishing whatever they could.
The areas that could be improved are things like the very precautionary size limit of 12 centimeters. There's also always discussion on the amount of biomass that is given out. So, for example, they could have been up to 35 percent in the recently started season, but they've only given 25 percent, which, if they manage to catch it all, is still a good amount. But, decisions that are based on human choices – sometimes more precautionary, sometimes less – are always going to be open to discussion. In general terms, I think there’s quite a good management of the stock currently, but there's also room for improvement.
In the European Union, quotas are recalculated based on political issues; it’s not always scientific advice that guides the final decisions. In Peru, since it's completely sovereign and the fishery is always inside the exclusive economic zone, there's no need to do this political dance.
But, one area where there’s a problem is the artisanal fishery. Even though it’s only allowed to operate in the first 5 miles from the coast and they’re only allowed to use their catch for food production, what is happening in reality is an important amount of that catch is actually being manufactured into fishmeal by illegal small-scale operations. That's not a very desirable outcome. That is something that really needs to be addressed by the Peruvian government.
