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By Fiona Cameron
Aberdeen, Scotland: Over the past three decades,
aquaculture has expanded, diversified and made major
technological advances.
Its potential to enhance food security and alleviate
poverty in the developing world has been widely
accepted - all the signs are that it is set to play
its part in bridging the 'food gap' in the 21st
century.
Aquaculture is growing more rapidly than all other
animal food producing sectors. According to FAO [UN
Food and Agriculture Organisation] statistics, the
sector has increased at an average global compounded
rate of 9.2% annually since 1970, compared with only
1.4% for capture fisheries and 2.8% for terrestrial
farmed meat production systems. Currently, over 90% of
production comes from Asia.
Aquaculture products now provide almost a third of the
world's supply of fish, crustaceans and molluscs - and
this must be set against a background of over-fishing,
which has seen a huge range of wild fish stocks
plummet to an all-time low from which many may take
years to recover - if at all. The FAO estimates that
11 of the world's 15 major fishing areas, and 69% of
the world's major fish species, are in decline and in
need of urgent management.
In the developing world the sector can provide
affordable food, employment, and a means of earning
hard currency. Although most aquaculture systems are
not labour-intensive, aquaculture has become an
important source of employment in many countries,
including in Europe. The EC's [European Commission's]
latest strategy document on the sector seeks to help
it grow 4% per annum, creating up to 10,000 new jobs
in the process.
For millions in the developing world, aquaculture also
represents the best opportunity to allow people to
grow a valuable source of protein on a small-scale
business basis. For the population of the developed
world, it has proved to be the means of making
once-expensive foods such as salmon and shellfish
accessible to all - in many cases via businesses which
are by no means small-scale.
Aquaculture can offer many advantages over capture
fisheries, apart from the obvious one of supply
continuity. The industry has worked steadily to
improve both the fish and the production methods used
- something the capture fisheries cannot emulate. The
effects have been significant in terms of increased
production of farmed species, and to a great extent
development could be said to have been a 'win-win'
situation - both producers and consumers have gained.
-Sustainability the key-
The FAO, the European Commission, and environmental
bodies such as WWF - all express their support for
'sustainable aquaculture'. But whatever the context,
the key word is always 'sustainable'.
Few would disagree with the definition of
sustainability offered by Norway's former prime
minister, Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland: 'Meeting the needs
of current generations without compromising the
ability of future generations to meet their own
needs'.
While we all agree that sustainability is essential,
the difficulty arises in defining the term in relation
to aquaculture. Two aspects tend to preoccupy the
industry's critics in the developed world -
environmental impact, and the use of 'industrial
fisheries' to provide fishmeal and fish oil to feed
piscivorous fish.
However as Dr Rohana Subasinghe, the senior fisheries
research officer in charge of aquaculture with the FAO,
points out, 'you need to look at the whole process,
including the market, productivity, social equity,
economic feasibility as well as the physical impacts
of aquaculture.'
This is further complicated by the sheer diversity of
the sector, which ranges from small backyard fishponds
to large, highly commercialised and automated
operations.
-Sustainability of feed-
Although the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) is
moving swiftly on certifying certain wild-capture
fisheries as sustainable, it has thus far baulked at
looking at the question of certifying aquaculture
products.
'Any MSC recognition of farmed fish products would
have to start with the feeds, by definition,' said MSC
CE Brendan May. 'There's no point in having everything
else well-managed and sustainable if the feed isn't
sustainable.'
Meanwhile the feed industry is making rapid strides in
developing products which use plant protein and plant
oil in place of a proportion of fish-derived products.
The sustainable feed issue is very much a
preoccupation of the developed countries. With the
exception of marine shrimp, in 2000 the bulk of
aquaculture production in developing countries
comprised omnivorous/herbivorous fish or
filter-feeding species. By contrast, 73.7% of finfish
farming in developed countries was of carnivorous
species.
-Environmental sustainability-
Aquaculture, like any other food-production system, is
bound to have some impact on the environment. The
industry, in nearly all cases, is working hard on
developing environmental management systems which
minimise its ecological 'footprint'. Many opponents of
fish farming believe that any environmental impact at
all is unacceptable. What is lacking is any workable
and generally-agreed definition of 'acceptable
impact'.
This is a dilemma which has not been faced, to the
same extent, by agriculture, and is possibly a facet
of the perception of aquaculture as a 'new' industry
(although it has been practised for thousands of
years).
-FAO support for aquaculture-
The FAO has been outspoken in its support for the
sector. It believes that policy-makers will find that,
on balance, aquaculture conforms better than capture
fisheries to public policy objectives for food
production, employment, environment and non-food use
of aquatic resources. In concrete terms fish produced
by capture fishers are likely to become increasingly
costly, and in some instances more rare, while that
produced through aquaculture will become more common
and prices will tend to fall.
Above all the FAO emphasises that the promotion of
sustainable aquaculture development requires 'enabling
environments' to be created and maintained. But the
impetus for developing new feeds, better husbandry
methods and improvements in fish health must surely
come from established, well-capitalised enterprises in
the developed countries - the very companies so
consistently attacked by the extremist lobby.
The critics cannot stand in the way of progress, but
their tactics may well slow down vital research and
investment. This, without doubt, is the agenda the
global industry must combat. |
