Editor’s Note: One key aquaculture issue not addressed by the article is the importance of marine ingredients in ensuring that farmed seafood diets contain enough omega-3 fatty acids and other nutrients. Marine ingredients like fish meal and fish oil are currently the best way of transferring these nutrients to farmed fish and on to consumers. To learn more about aquaculture and marine ingredients, view this video.

November 22, 2015 — SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — Research supported by the soybean industry is looking to convert some farm-raised fish into vegetarians.

A South Dakota State University fisheries scientist is developing a soy protein feed that’s tasty and easily digestible to eventually reduce the industry’s need for using wild-caught fish as food for farm-raised fish.

Much of the tilapia, Atlantic salmon and catfish that Americans toss into their shopping carts are raised in fish farms, where companies traditionally feed them pellets containing anchovy, menhaden and herring. The harvest of those small species has pretty much flat-lined, SDSU professor Mike Brown said, and humans’ increased demand for fish has driven up the cost of creating the pellet feed.

“We’ve fully exploited that resource,” he said, noting that the goal is to create a more sustainable – and cheaper – food source. Traditional fish feed is currently costing between $1,450 and $2,000 per ton, while soybean meal runs about $425 per ton, Brown said.

But some environmentalists worry that feeding fish species an uncommon food source could produce excess waste that muddies up inland tanks or offshore waters where fish are raised.

Read the full story at the New York Times