UN report reveals aquaculture is now the largest source of aquatic food production – can the sector continue to scale sustainably?

niki — Fri, 28 Jun 2024 12:37:05 +0000

The latest edition of the biennial State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture report published by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) reveals global fisheries and aquaculture production hit a new record high of 223.2 million tonnes in 2022, with aquaculture surpassing capture fisheries for the first time.

Aquaculture produced an unprecedented 130.9 million tonnes of aquatic animal products. The FAO projects a 10% increase in aquatic animal production and a 12% rise in consumption by 2032, driven by aquaculture expansion and fisheries recovery. However, challenges remain, including uneven regional growth, gender inequality, and concerns over meeting future demand. (FAO)

Why does this matter? More than 3 billion people rely on seafood as a vital source of protein. With the world population projected to pass 9.7 billion by 2050, the number of humans reliant on seafood is only set to rise, making the aquatic food system a crucial source of global nutrition and food security.

According to FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu, “transformation is essential” to ensure aquatic life continues to feed a growing population sustainably.

Crucial to the aquatic food sector’s sustainable ambitions is the FAO’s Blue Transformation roadmap, which “outlines a vision to expand aquatic food systems and increase their contribution to nutritious and affordable healthy diets.”

The roadmap is designed to accelerate progress towards achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14, Life Below Water, which aims to “conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.”

However, the UN’s latest annual Sustainable Development Report found that none of the 17 SDGs are on course to be met by 2030. Although this stagnation is concerning, it provides the aquatic food sector with the opportunity to accelerate meaningful progress towards achieving SDG 14.

Given its rapid expansion in recent years, sustainable aquaculture development will be pivotal to ensuring the wider seafood industry achieves its sustainable ambitions.

The FAO report urges aquaculture operators to pursue an “ecosystem approach” as the future of aquaculture intensification and expansion, which will minimise environmental impacts and secure animal health and food safety.

A crucial vehicle for ensuring aquaculture scales to meet demand while avoiding disruption to adjacent ecosystems will involve encouraging innovation and investing in technological developments in the sector.

Indeed, aquaculture operators already have various technological tools that will aid the sector’s sustainable development. For example, as aquaculture volumes continue to rise, traditional open ocean methods alone will become insufficient to meet increasing demand, meaning aquatic products reared in closed Recirculating Aquaculture Systems (RAS) will be required to fill the demand gap.

RAS technology is expanding rapidly in scale and technological sophistication, enabling aquaculture operators to breed fish intensively in a controlled environment without risking stock escaping and mixing with wild populations.

The Kingfish Company is one such example of an aquaculture operator employing RAS technology. The Netherlands-based firm is the largest land-based producer of yellowtail – a highly sought-after sushi ingredient – in the European market.

Already equipped with 3,500 tonnes of installed capacity in 2023, the firm also has space to nearly double in size. Operationally, The Kingfish Company does not administer antibiotics or vaccines, the business is 100% powered by renewable electricity, and it uses seawater rather than limited freshwater resources.

Expanding aquaculture to fit this model will ensure the industry scales in the sustainable fashion the FAO report desires, with minimal disruption to local environments.

In terms of traditional cage-based aquaculture practices, tilapia farm operator Tilabras offers a compelling model of how the industry can operate in harmony with surrounding ecosystems and raise stock in a healthy, uncrowded environment.

Food glorious blue food

niki — Mon, 22 Apr 2024 13:54:00 +0000

Economist Impact – World Ocean Initiative

A guest blog by Chris Gorell Barnes, founding partner, Ocean 14 Capital

Risks are escalating socially, politically and environmentally, you just need to look at the World Economic Forum’s Global Risk Report at the start of each year to see the magnitude and heightened concern over global catastrophes.

And food systems are at the epicentre of three global risks: food insecurity; public-health issues; and planet-warming greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions—to which global food production contributes one-third.

There are at least 238m acutely food insecure people in 48 countries; a 10% increase on the 2022 figure, according to the World Food Programme. Food insecurity is largely driven by extreme weather affecting production; conflict creating distribution problems, price hikes and food shortages; and economic shocks inflating prices.

For the first time at the annual climate conference, the COP presidency prioritised food systems, with a particular focus on loss and waste. In 2022, there were 1.05bn tonnes of food waste generated, according to the UNEP Food Waste Index Report 2024, amounting to over one billion meals a day.

Food loss and waste generates 8-10% of annual GHG emissions—almost five times that of the aviation sector. The toll of food loss and waste on the global economy is estimated at $1trn, according to the World Bank.

With 38% of the global population currently either overweight or obese and some 422m people worldwide with diabetes, “diabesity” is the next biggest human epidemic. Finding sustainably sourced protein-laden, nutritious food to combat “hidden hunger” is a challenge.

Blue cuisine

Yet very few look to the ocean as a critical player as both a source of environmentally sustainable and regenerative proteins and as an integral solution to mitigating the effects of the climate crisis. Moreover, according to research by Economist Impact, the ocean is crucial to achieving all of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, which is why blue foods need to be front and centre of any food-security discussions.

From both freshwater (fisheries) and marine (aquaculture) production systems, blue foods are key to making sure that there is enough to feed the estimated 10bn people expected by 2050. Right now, in terms of food, fish provide more than 4.5bn people with at least 15% of their average per capita intake of animal protein, reaching more than 50% in several countries in Asia and Africa.

And of the 3bn in ocean-related livelihoods, marine fisheries alone employ almost 60m people, of which roughly 20% are women. In 2020, fisheries and aquaculture production reached an all-time record of 214m tonnes, worth about $424bn.

That said, the increasing global consumption of seafood has meant that unsustainable fishing and aquaculture practices are depleting the ocean of fish and other aquatic food species. In 2017, industrial-scale fishing meant that more than 35% of global fish stocks were overfished, with over a third of all fish removed from the sea wasted.

To read the full blog and find out what Chris Gorell Barnes believes can be done to turn things around, click here.

Blue Foods Archives | Ocean 14 Capital Limited

UN report reveals aquaculture is now the largest source of aquatic food production – can the sector continue to scale sustainably?

Food glorious blue food

Blue cuisine