As the aquaculture industry’s share of total seafood production continues to grow, its need for feed ingredients grows along with it.
According to Pew Charitable Trusts Ecosystem and Conservation Team Director Andrew Clayton, the global aquaculture industry’s need of feed ingredients is a key reason why it should be taking a more active role in the sustainability of the world’s pelagic fisheries.
Clayton, speaking during a conference session at the 2025 Seafood Expo Global – which ran from 6 to 8 May in Barcelona, Spain – said the aquaculture industry should provide additional input as some of the world’s pelagic fisheries grapple with sustainability crises.
“Aquaculture, in large part, depends on inputs from wild catch,” Clayton said. “So, those parts of the aquaculture supply that depend on feed are depending on around 17 million metric tons [MT] a year from wild fish catches to produce fishmeal and fish oil.”
The majority of fishmeal production comes from whole fish reduction – which consists mainly of catching small pelagic fish that are reduced into fishmeal and fish oil products. The fisheries for these species vary across the world, with one of the largest sources of fishmeal and fish oil coming from Peru’s anchoveta fishery, which accounts for 7.2 percent of all wild catches globally.
“We expect these trends to continue; the growth of aquaculture to meet demand for seafood products is going to continue to rely on these wild catches of mainly small pelagics,” Clayton said.
That continued reliance comes as the world’s pelagic fisheries grapple with management challenges that threaten their sustainability – and thus their supply for the aquaculture industry – as well as the sustainability of the many species that rely on them for food. Clayton pointed out that pelagic species tend to occupy an important part of the food chain and are often the species that convert plankton into fish biomass and are. in turn, eaten by other fish.
“They’re hugely important. Managers, when they’re managing these pelagic fisheries, have a number of things in mind – the importance of these fisheries for local fishers and for local food security; the importance of these species as food for the predators in these ecosystems; and the importance of these small fish as food for other commercial fish,” Clayton said. “So, managers for these fisheries have a really critical role in managing these fish that underpin those ecosystems.”
Despite that highly critical role, there are clear signs of managers failing to ...
