Saving Seafood

A closer look at the environmental costs of food

June 13, 2018 — The relationship between food and environment is one of the most important conservation issues in the anthropocene. Currently, agriculture uses 38% of the world’s land and accounts for over 90% of freshwater use. Farming and food production has been, and continues to be, the largest driver of habitat and biodiversity loss on the planet.

But, not all foods have the same environmental cost. Comparing and quantifying environmental impacts of different foods is important to guide agricultural policy and empower consumer choice. A paper published today is the most comprehensive comparison of the environmental impacts of meat and fish production—its findings can better inform personal food choices and, hopefully, will help decision-makers devise better food policies that account for environmental cost. Lead author of the study, Ray Hilborn said, “I think this is one of the most important things I’ve ever done…Policymakers need to be able to say, ‘There are certain food production types we need to encourage, and others we should discourage.’”

The paper used 148 different life-cycle assessment papers (also know as “cradle-to-grave” analysis) to look at environmental impacts associated with every aspect of animal protein as food. Researchers quantified 4 different kinds of major environmental impacts caused by food production: (1) electricity/energy use; (2) greenhouse gas emissions; (3) potential for nutrient runoff—this causes most of the world’s water quality issues; (4) potential to cause air pollution.

By standardizing environmental impacts per 40g/protein produced researchers were able to compare different kinds of animal proteins. Basically, the paper answers the question: what are the environmental costs of producing a hamburger patty’s worth of protein from different animal sources?

Read the full story at Sustainable Fisheries UW

Industrial Beef, Farmed Catfish Worst Foods For Environmental Impact, Study Finds

June 12, 2018 — Not all foods are created equal, especially when it comes to the environmental impact of meat production. Industrial beef and farmed catfish take the biggest toll on the environment, while small fish caught in the wild and farmed shellfish and mollusks cause the least damage, a study had found.

Researchers used the standard of producing 40 grams of protein — the daily recommended protein serving — as the base for looking at four different metrics of how various types of production of different foods impact the environment. The four metrics were the amount of energy used, emissions of greenhouse gases, the potential for contribution of excessive chemicals — in the form of nutrients, such as fertilizers — to the environment, and the potential to contribute to acid rain by emitting specific substances.

They looked at all stages of the food products’ lives, called “cradle-to-grace” analysis. There are about 300 different assessments for such analyses when it comes to animal food production, and the study’s authors selected 148 of those, choosing ones that were comprehensive and not too specialized.

Livestock farming at the industrial scale had the worst impact in the acid rain category, due to the emission of methane from manure. It also scored poorly when it comes to excessive nutrients being released into the environment. Industrial beef production, as well as aquaculture catfish, produce about 20 times more greenhouse gases than producing chicken, or salmon and mollusks that have been farmed. Seafood aquaculture, including catfish, tilapia and shrimp, used the most energy, even more than livestock production.

On the other hand, producing mollusks like oysters, mussels and scallops in aquaculture absorbs excess nutrients that would otherwise harm the ecosystem. It also emits fewer greenhouse gases. Catching fish in the wild requires no fertilizers of any sort, and the biggest environmental factor there is the fuel used by the fishing boats. The exact amount of fuel consumed varies greatly, depending on the type of fishing method used.

Read the full story at the International Business Times

‘Extracting Value from the Right Amount of Fish’: Saving Seafood Looks at Aquaculture Efficiency

June 6, 2018 — WASHINGTON — Through new techniques and technologies, farming fish is becoming increasingly efficient, leading aquaculture experts tell Saving Seafood in a new video.

“With a whole range of factors – improved nutritional knowledge, better management techniques of feeding on the farm, and all of that – [the fish in–fish out] ratio has gone down,” says Andrew Jackson, Chairman of IFFO RS.

“For every 0.7 kilos of fish in, you get a kilo of fish out,” says Dan Lee, Standards Coordinator for the Global Aquaculture Alliance’s Best Aquaculture Practices Program. “So that’s becoming very favorable towards aquaculture productivity.”

In the case of salmon farming, nutritionists are using alternative ingredients, including plant proteins like soy, and mixing canola and other vegetable oils in with pure fish oil. This has helped lowered the percentage of marine ingredients in fish feed to about 25 percent of farmed salmon diets, and projections are that this will drop below 10 percent by 2025.

“They’ve figured out that the key to being successful and profitable and sustainable is not necessarily to catch more fish, it’s to extract as much value as possible out of the right amount of fish,” says Tim Fitzgerald, Director of the Environmental Defense Fund’s Impact Division.

These improvements have made farming fish one of the most sustainable forms of protein production, experts tell Saving Seafood.

“When you’re growing chickens or pigs or cattle, the transformation between the feed and the [farmed product] is much more inefficient than with fish,” says Manuel Barange, Director of Fisheries and Aquaculture at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. “So if we have to feed any animal for us to eat, it makes sense to do that with fish. It’s more efficient.”

The video is the second in a series, Aquaculture Today, in which Saving Seafood interviews leading aquaculture experts on the latest advances in farmed fish, and its role in the world. Saving Seafood released a video yesterday on aquaculture’s role in feeding the world’s growing population.

In addition to Mr. Jackson, Mr. Lee, Mr. Fitzgerald, and Mr. Barange, the video also features Julien Stevens, Researcher at Kampachi Farms, and Neil Auchterlonie, Technical Director at IFFO.

Interviews for Aquaculture Today were conducted by Saving Seafood at the 2017 SeaWeb Seafood Summit in Seattle, Washington.

 

More Fish From Aquaculture Is Already Consumed In The World Than Caught

June 6, 2018 — “THE AQUACULTURE SECTOR ALREADY PRODUCES MORE THAN 50% OF THE FISH DESTINED FOR FOOD WORLDWIDE”

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria gathers in an international symposium organized by ISFNF and ECOAQUA the world’s leading experts in fish and crustacean nutrition.

As the world’s population continues to rise, threatening to surpass 7.5 billion people by 2020, the need to create high-quality aquatic products rich in omega-3s has soared to cover not only the food needs of people but also reduce the risk of suffering from many diseases in industrialized and non-industrialized countries.

Capture fishing and the collection of mollusks has served humans, in a traditional way, to obtain aquatic products that serve as the basis for their diet. However, marine resources are limited and, in the future, aquaculture will have a fundamental role to guarantee the production of aquatic species.

So says Marisol Izquierdo, director of the ECOAQUA Institute of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (ULPGC): “Aquaculture is probably the fastest growing food production sector today. The sector already produces more than 50% of the fish destined for food worldwide, adding up to more than 110 million metric tons, “he explains.

Fish, seafood, seaweed, cephalopods and other aquatic products are very important as a source of protein in human nutrition, and also provide phosphorus, calcium and, above all, omega-3. “There are many studies that show that a diet based on fish, and in particular omega-3, reduces the risk of suffering a multitude of diseases such as diabetes, pathologies of cardiovascular origin, various types of cancer, and also diseases of neurological origin such as Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia,” he stresses.

Read the full story at the Maritime Herald

How Aquaculture is Feeding a Growing World: Saving Seafood Takes a Closer Look

June 5, 2018 — WASHINGTON — Global poverty and malnutrition are falling worldwide, and the availability of affordable, healthy protein is a key reason why. Aquaculture, as one of the world’s fastest growing sources of food production, has been an essential part of this development.

Saving Seafood is taking a closer look at the role that aquaculture plays as a source of food, nutrition, and employment for millions of people around the world in a new series, Aquaculture Today. We interview leading aquaculture experts on the latest breakthroughs and developments in farmed seafood, and the role it plays in the future of human health and the global food supply. 

Worldwide, protein consumption has more than doubled in the past 50 years, going from 9 kg per person per year to nearly 20 kg per person per year. Fish, as a cheap and readily accessible food source, has made up a large share of global protein consumption. As the demand for affordable sources of protein grows along with the world’s population, these fish are increasingly being produced through aquaculture.

“Aquaculture has been the fastest [growing] food production industry in the world for the last four decades,” says Manuel Barange, Director of Fisheries and Aquaculture at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. “We need to make sure that is maintained, perhaps not at the same growth, but that it is maintained because it provides not just nutrition, but actually livelihoods and economic opportunities in places where there are not many other opportunities for economic development.”

The importance of aquaculture to global seafood production is only expected to increase, with the production of farmed seafood expected to dwarf that of wild-caught seafood in the next 15 years.

“The projections are that we’ll reach 62 percent of food fish coming from aquaculture by around 2030,” says Dan Lee, Standards Coordinator for the Global Aquaculture Alliance’s Best Aquaculture Practices Program.

This growth presents an opportunity for fishing communities, which have a chance to diversify to meet the needs of the global seafood market.

“One thing that I would really like to see the industry support [NOAA] stepping up with is dealing with this sort of issue, trying to help these communities start to either diversify their fisheries or thinking more about how they can move into aquaculture,” says Richard Merrick, former Chief Scientist at NOAA Fisheries.

Aquaculture Today comes from interviews conducted by Saving Seafood at the 2017 SeaWeb Seafood Summit in Seattle, Washington.

View the video here.

 

Marine heatwaves are getting hotter, lasting longer and doing more damage

June 1, 2018 — On land, heatwaves can be deadly for humans and wildlife and can devastate crops and forests.

Unusually warm periods can also occur in the ocean. These can last for weeks or months, killing off kelp forests and corals, and producing other significant impacts on marine ecosystems, fishing and aquaculture industries.

Yet until recently, the formation, distribution and frequency of marine heatwaves had received little research attention.

Long-term change

Climate change is warming ocean waters and causing shifts in the distribution and abundance of seaweeds, corals, fish and other marine species. For example, tropical fish species are now commonly found in Sydney Harbour.

But these changes in ocean temperatures are not steady or even, and scientists have lacked the tools to define, synthesize and understand the global patterns of marine heatwaves and their biological impacts.

At a meeting in early 2015, we convened a group of scientists with expertise in atmospheric climatology, oceanography and ecology to form a marine heatwaves working group to develop a definition for the phenomenon: A prolonged period of unusually  at a particular location for that time of the year. Importantly, marine heatwaves can occur at any time of the year, summer or winter.

Read the full story at PHYS

 

NOAA: ​2019 Saltonstall-Kennedy (S-K) Grant competition is currently open.

May 29, 2018 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA Fisheries is pleased to announce the ​​2019 Saltonstall-Kennedy (S-K) Grant competition is currently open. This year’s solicitation consists of two separate submission processes. All interested applicants must submit a 2 page Pre-Proposal to the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) posted at www.Grants.gov found here.  Applicants interested in submitting a full application after the pre-proposal review process must submit the full application through www.grants.gov.

Please note that under this one Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) there are two (2) competition links.  Please be sure to submit your pre-proposals to the “PRE PROPOSALS FY19 Saltonstall-Kennedy” link prior to July 23, 2018, ​the date specified in this NOFO.  Please be sure to submit your FULL Proposals to the “FULL Proposals FY19 Saltonstall-Kennedy” link prior to ​Novem​b​er 5, 2018, ​​​the date specified in this NOFO. Be sure to read the NOFO and follow the directions closely.

The goal of the S-K program is to fund projects that address the needs of fishing communities, optimize economic benefits by building and maintaining sustainable fisheries, and increase other opportunities to keep working waterfronts viable. The FY19 solicitation seeks applications that fall into one of three priorities:

  • Promotion
  • Development
  • Marketing
  • Marine Aquaculture
  • Support of Science that Maximizes Fishing Opportunities
  • Revenue and Jobs in U.S. Fisheries
  • Long-Term Sustainability of Marine Resources

For more information click here.

 

Washington state finds virus in Cooke Atlantic salmon, plans expanded testing

May 21, 2018 — After identifying an exotic virus in fish raised by Cooke Aquaculture, Washington state is planning to test at other sites where the pathogen from Atlantic salmon may have been spread.

The state this week blocked restocking of one of Cooke’s net pens after fish at the company’s rearing facility in Thurston County tested positive for the virus.

Ken Warheit, fish-health manager for the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife (WDFW), will, as soon as possible, test Cooke’s settling ponds at its incubator in Rochester, Thurston County, as well as Scatter Creek and its confluence with the Chehalis River for the presence of the virus found in the Atlantic salmon smolts raised by Cooke.

The pathogen could have contaminated surrounding water, raising a concern for its potential to affect native Pacific salmon, Warheit said.

Cooke’s request for a permit to transfer the smolts to open-water net pens for growing to harvest size was denied for the same reason, Warheit said.

Read the full story at the Seattle Times

 

Why should you care about fisheries? They can help feed the world.

May 16, 2018 — Food security is a hot button topic for today’s world leaders, and rightly so as the population swells to 10 billion people by the middle of the century. Feeding that many people is a huge challenge – creating an urgent call to action for resources to be managed more sustainably and equitably – and wild seafood plays a big role.

Typically, these discussions focus on land-based agriculture, including the production of grains, seeds, crops and livestock that, while subject to droughts, diseases and shortages, are the main source of world food consumption as measured by total calories. However, food sources from our oceans, lakes and rivers also play a large part in feeding the world, and deserve their place in the discussion.   

That’s why we’re excited to share a new report from Duke University and EDF* examining how wild capture fisheries fit into this complex discussion and summarizing what we know about the potential role of fish and other aquatic resources, like shellfish and crustaceans, to help feed an increasingly hungry world. After all, three billion people rely on seafood as a primary source of protein, and this number will only continue to grow.

Read the full story at EDF

 

How the world’s second largest indoor salmon farm could take shape in Maine

May 11, 2018 — BELFAST, Maine — You might have to squint through the trees to spot the world’s second largest salmon farm in Belfast, according to computer renderings unveiled Wednesday.

Nordic Aquafarms, a Norwegian aquaculture firm, says its due diligence, the process used to determine whether the project would be feasible, is about 90 percent complete, and is ready to start applying for permits.

Nordic hosted its latest information session at the Hutchinson Center in Belfast on Wednesday night.

In its first phase, Nordic would build a 300,000-square-foot building on a 40-acre plot near the Northport town line. The building will be about 10-15 feet shorter than surrounding trees, largely hiding it from view, according to Nordic’s CEO Erik Heim.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News