Fish – One Billion Hungry: Can We Feed the World?

The World Resources Institute in their fifth instalment of the soon to be released World Resources Report, partnered with WorldFish, the World Bank, INRA, and Kasetsart University to explore how aquaculture can grow sustainably, reducing its environmental impact and contributing to food and nutrition security.

Aquaculture is a rapidly growing industry and production between 2000 and 2012 more than doubled. Aquaculture output is growing at 6.6% per cent per annum worldwide. As wild catch fish stocks decline, peaking in the 1990s, aquaculture becomes ever more important for meeting demands for fish, which contribute one sixth of animal protein consumed across the globe. To meet future demand it’s estimated that aquaculture production will have to increase by over 100% by 2050.

Aquaculture has been linked with some serious environmental concerns particularly for high-input high-output intensive systems – the eutrophication of lakes and transformation of species assemblages on the seabed as a result of nutrient enrichment; the physical degradation and clearing of coastal habitats such as mangroves for shrimp aquaculture; the introduction of non-native species to natural ecosystems; and the salinisation of drinking water resources, for example. Already large-scale improvements to the aquaculture sector are taking place: increasing resource-use efficiency, mangrove conversion is largely being prevented and the share of fishmeal and fish oil in feeds is declining, putting less pressure on wild fish resources.

Without appropriate management of these systems, however, the intensification of aquaculture, as wild fish stocks decline and demand for fish increases, could also intensify these environmental impacts. Sustainable intensification is called for, in the case of aquaculture defined as: advancing socio-economic development; providing safe, nutritious food; increasing the production of fish relative to the amount of land, water, feed, and energy used; and minimising water pollution, fish diseases, and escapes. The WRI paper explores various scenarios of aquaculture growth to 2050 to investigate whether the sector’s development can be sustainable. They find that under most scenarios environmental impacts, such as greenhouse gas emissions, are increased. The report recommends five approaches to transforming the aquaculture sector, increasing production while reducing its impacts: [Read more…]

Filed Under: 14 - Sustained by Water Tagged With: aquaculture, Fish, fisheries, food security, livestock, sustainable intensification

What we’ve been reading this week

May 23, 2014 by canwefeedtheworld Leave a Comment

This week’s summary on the news stories, reports and blogs that have grabbed our attention. We welcome your thoughts and comments on these articles.

Progress Reported in Global Food and Nutrition Security, but DuPont Committee Notes Significant Challenges Lie Ahead, PR Web

Commentary – Sustainable intensification: a single solution for a double challenge, Global Food for Thought

The First GMO Field Tests, Modern Farmer

An Inconvenient Truth About Our Food, The New York Times

Report highlights growing role of fish in feeding the world, FAO

Report Urges U.S. Commitment to Addressing Impact of Climate Change on Global Food Security, The Chicago Council on Global Affairs

Gmo myths and truths report, Earth Open Source

The food system we choose affects biodiversity: do we want monocultures?, The Guardian

Who Wants to Farm? Hardly any young people, it seems. Should/Could that change?, Duncan Green, Oxfam

14 pointers toward a better food system: Connecting the (local, sustainable) dots, Grist [Read more…]

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: algae, Biodiversity, climate change, debt, deforestation, Fish, food security, food system, GMO, land grabs, nutrition, organic, resilience, sustainable intenisfication, youth

Marine Fisheries

September 28, 2012 by canwefeedtheworld Leave a Comment

As stated in Chapter 14, most of the world’s wild fish stock harvest is stagnant or declining. The global harvest captured in the oceans and inland waters has peaked in 2000 at 96 million tons and subsequently fallen to 90 million tons in 2003, remaining at that level until 2009.

Fisheries, like rangelands discussed in Chapter 10, can be conceptualised in terms of a range of possible carrying capacities and sustainable yields, depending on the objectives. If preservation is desired, for example of the world’s whale stocks, an ecological carrying capacity can be sought; it is also possible to maximise the production of high quality sport fish, or of small ‘industrial’ fish. The recent history of the world’s marine fisheries has been an accelerating trend towards industrial fishing, harvesting smaller and smaller fish, not for direct human consumption but for feed. 20 per cent of world production now consists of small pelagic species used for making fishmeal which, in turn, is used in pig and poultry production and in salmon and shrimp aquaculture.

Despite the apparent stability of the oceans, their fish and other populations are as much subject to fluctuation as are rangeland cattle. One of the most productive fisheries in the world, providing 20 per cent of the world’s fish landings in the 1960s and 1970s, is generated by upwellings of cold, nutrient rich waters off the coast of Chile and Peru. [Read more…]