Saving Seafood

Aquaculture drives aquatic food yields to new high

June 30, 2022 — The production of wild and farm-raised fish, shellfish and algae reached record levels in 2020, and future increases could be vital to fighting world hunger, the Food and Agriculture Organization said Wednesday.

Driven by sustained growth in aquaculture,  and aquatic farming together hauled in 214 million tonnes, the UN agency said in a report.

The total first-sale value of 2020 production topped $400 million, with $265 million coming from aquaculture, a sector poised for further expansion.

These trend lines are good news for a world facing price hikes and  due to the war in Ukraine, disrupted supply chains, and inflation.

Read the full story from Phys.org

 

5 surprising benefits of U.S. farm-raised seafood

February 2, 2017 — You’re shopping for tonight’s dinner and decide fish sounds delicious. You visit the seafood section of your local market and are suddenly overwhelmed with choices. Salmon, tilapia, clams or shrimp? Imported or U.S. farm raised?

It can feel like there are endless options when shopping at the grocery store. Knowing what’s best for you and your family is difficult enough, yet alone weighing environmental concerns and other impacts of food choices.

When selecting seafood, there are various things to consider before deciding what to put in your cart. For many people, U.S. farm-raised options are their seafood of choice for a variety of reasons.

Low-calorie protein

U.S. farm-raised fish and shellfish are an amazingly nutrient dense food and are excellent sources of high quality, easily digestible protein. What’s more, they are packed with important vitamins and minerals including essential B-complex, A and D vitamins as well as selenium, iron and zinc. An average serving has less than 200 calories. Some of the leaner varieties like tilapia, clams, oysters, mussels and shrimp have less than 100 calories.

Read the full story at The Baltimore Sun

Farm-Raised Seafoods Fed Plant-Based Diet Have Lower Levels of Omega-3 Fatty Acids

March 14, 2016 — A change in how farmers are raising seafood is expected to affect human nutrition, a new study found.

According to the research team from the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future (CLF) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment and McGill University, there has been a global shift in the type of feed that is being used in fish farming.

The team explained that prior to this shift, farm-raised seafood ate feed made from fish meal and fish oil, which came from wild fish. However, since catching wild fish to use as feed was no longer sustainable, farmers have been relying on plant-based options, such as soybean meal. The researchers noted in 2008, aquaculture feed contained 50 percent more soybean meal than fish meal. They estimated that from 2008 to 2020, the use of plant-based ingredients can increase by 124 percent.

Read the full story at HNGN

Peruvian Acuapesca Farmed Scallops Certified Sustainable

January 20, 2016 — PERU – The Peruvian company Acuacultura y Pesca Group (Acuapesca) has been confirmed Friend of the Sea certified for scallops from sustainable aquaculture.

After an independent assessment audit Acuapesca was found compliant with Friend of the Sea strict criteria of sustainability.

Acuapesca has been operating since 1989 in the remote and pristine areas of Guaynumá Bay and Nunura Beach with 5 farms and one processing plant.

Water parameters are checked periodically. The development of the facilities has not damaged critical ecosystems. The species (Argopecten purpuratus) is a native species, whose broodstocks are captured in the bay and induced to spawn in laboratory, for later reintroduction in the bay to continue the growth process. The scallops are grown in long line cages.

Read the full story at The Fish Site

 

Benefits of fish farms in Gulf of Mexico debated

January 12, 2016 — NEW ORLEANS (AP) – Fish farming is contentious, with fishermen and environmentalists warning that new rules supporting it could harm the marine environment and put fishermen out of work.

Federal regulations were issued this week, allowing the farming of fish in federal waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

Kathryn Sullivan, administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said the Gulf rules could spur similar rules in other U.S. waters and help the U.S. meet its seafood demands.

Typically, offshore farming is done by breeding fish in large semi-submersible pens moored to the seafloor. The practice is common in many parts of the world, and Sullivan said the United States has fallen behind. About 90 percent of the seafood consumed in the U.S. is imported and more than half of that is farmed, she noted.

She said expanding fish farming has numerous benefits.

“It’s good for the balance of trade. It’s good for the food security of the country,” she said. It could create jobs, she added.

The new rules allow up to 20 fish farms to open in the Gulf and produce 64 million pounds of fish a year. The farms can start applying for 10-year permits starting in February, she said.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at Houston Chronicle

 

FDA nominee sails through Senate committee, but could a fish stand in his way?

January 12, 2016 — A Senate health committee on Tuesday easily advanced the nomination of former Duke University researcher and cardiologist Robert Califf as the next commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. But Califf, while widely expected to win confirmation from the full Senate, faces at least one surprise hurdle on the way to his new job: genetically engineered salmon.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) told her colleagues on the committee that met Tuesday to vote on Califf’s nomination that she is willing to stall it until he and FDA agree to mandatory labeling requirements for the AquaAdvantage salmon.

The salmon, produced by Massachusetts-based AquaBounty and approved by the agency in November, is an Atlantic salmon that contains a growth hormone from a Chinook salmon and has been given a gene from the ocean pout, an eel-like fish. The result is a fish engineered to grow twice as fast as its natural counterpart. The first genetically altered animal approved for human consumption, it has been the subject of long-running fights involving food-safety activists, environmental groups and the salmon fishing industry.

Read the full story at The Washington Post

Shellfish Farmers Fear Ocean Acidification May Affect Harvests in 2016

January 8, 2016 — Ocean acidification was blamed for the shutdown of the Washington oyster fishery last year and B.C. could be next, partially for the same reason, said Rob Saunders, owner of Island Scallops at Qualicum Beach.

Speaking to TheProvince, Mr Saunders said that Island Scallops, which provides seed oysters and scallops for farmers, lost 90 per cent of its oyster larvae last year.

Acidic water affects the oysters’ ability to grow a hard shell. It takes two years for oysters to mature for harvest, and Mr Saunders said oysters may be in short supply this year.

Read the full story at The Fish Site

Vietnam Shrimp Farmers Suffer from Uncontrolled Expansion, Gov’t Vows Enforcement on Antibiotics

SEAFOODNEWS.COM [ Vietnam News Brief Service] January 5, 2016 — Authorities in the Mekong Delta, the biggest aquatic pond in Vietnam, are striving to tighten control over local shrimp farming toward sustainable way amid rising concerns on antibiotics contamination, disease outbreak and polluted environment.

Tran Quoc Tuan, director of the Industry and Trade Department of Tra Vinh province, said he supported efforts to tighten the management of antibiotic use in shrimp farming and boost dissemination of information to farmers and processing companies.

He said state management agencies still have to make farmers aware of the risks, and companies must change their way of doing business by co-operating with farmers to build clean material areas. In doing so, the seed, farming methods, feeding and medicines will be strictly controlled in order to produce quality products, he said.

Profitable shrimp farming produced a rapid transformation in the quality of life for Vietnamese people in the Mekong Delta region, but the unplanned expansion in production has also had negative effects on the environment and domestic shrimp trade.

Due to its favorable natural conditions, farmers in coastal communes of many Vietnamese southern provinces started to switch from rice cultivation to shrimp farming 15 years ago. The rapid success and high income that the industry ushered in pushed many local people to invest in this sector.

Due to attractive profits, farmers in other areas of unfavorable natural conditions also did whatever it took to raise shrimp. Farmers spontaneously drilled wells to bring in salt water and made ponds to raise shrimp.

The rapid growth of shrimp farming and poor infrastructure has led to disease outbreaks, massive shrimp death and huge losses for farmers in many places.

Many farmers in Ben Tre, Bac Lieu, Kien Giang and Tra Vinh have been forced to give up shrimp farming as shrimp disease broke out.

Meanwhile, a large volume of Vietnamese seafood, including shrimp, has been rejected by importing countries. According to statistics of relevant agencies, in the last two years, 32,000 tons of Vietnamese seafood, mainly shrimp were not allowed to enter foreign markets because of antibiotic contamination.

In the first nine months of 2015, 38 foreign countries returned 582 batches of seafood products to Vietnamese providers for the same reason, stating that they would tighten the inspection of shrimp shipments from Vietnam.

There are various types of antibiotics displayed for sale, but farmers are mostly unaware of their toxicological effects. On the other hand, processing factories keep buying shrimp without proper inspection, so farmers become negligent in utilizing antibiotics.

This opinion piece originally appeared on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It has been reprinted with permission.

FDA must develop plan to label genetically engineered salmon, Congress says

December 17, 2015 — The sprawling federal spending bill unveiled this week on Capitol Hill included a small passage with potentially big implications in the food world.

In two paragraphs on page 106, lawmakers instructed the Food and Drug Administration to forbid the sale of genetically engineered salmon until the agency puts in place labeling guidelines and “a program to disclose to consumers” whether a fish has been genetically altered. The language comes just a month after FDA made salmon the first genetically modified animal approved for human consumption and represents a victory for advocates who have long opposed such foods from reaching Americans’ dinner plates. At the very least, they say, consumers ought to know what they are buying.

The fish in the spotlight is the AquAdvantage salmon, produced by Massachusetts-based AquaBounty. The Atlantic salmon contains a growth hormone from a Chinook salmon and a gene from the ocean pout — a combination to help it grow large enough for consumption in 18 months instead of the typical three years.

Read the full story at The Washington Post

 

Are You Eating Frankenfish?

December 15, 2015 — This month, Congress may decide whether consumers are smart enough to be trusted with their own food choices. Some lawmakers are trying to insert language into must-pass spending legislation that would block states from giving consumers the right to know whether their food contains genetically modified ingredients.

They must be stopped.

Nine out of 10 Americans want G.M.O. disclosure on food packages, according to a 2013 New York Times poll, just like consumers in 64 other nations. But powerful members of the agriculture and appropriations committees, along with their allies in agribusiness corporations like Monsanto, want to keep consumers in the dark. That’s why opponents of this effort have called it the DARK Act — or the Deny Americans the Right to Know Act.

As a chef, I’m proud of the food I serve. The idea that I would try to hide what’s in my food from my customers offends everything I believe in. It’s also really bad for business.

Why, then, have companies like Kellogg and groups like the Grocery Manufacturers Association spent millions in recent years to lobby against transparency? They say, in effect: “Trust us, folks. We looked into it. G.M.O. ingredients are safe.” But what they’re missing is that consumers want to make their own judgments. Consumers are saying: “Trust me. Let me do my own homework and make my own choices.”

Read the full opinion piece at the New York Times