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.