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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Eating fish could be framed as a wicked problem – one where multiple interdependencies mean that an attempt to solve one aspect of the problem may exacerbate others. Eating seafood is important for good health – seafood contains nutrients such as omega 3 which can prove difficult to obtain elsewhere in our diets – but at the same time, wild fish populations are under severe stress, and the complexity of fisheries policy and the rapidly shifting status of different fish stocks means assessing sustainability is a challenge for the average shopper looking for their fish dinner.
Aquaculture (farming seafood) is promoted as a sustainable solution to our ever-increasing demand for the natural availability of wild seafood, as a means of alleviating pressure on overfished species while providing the public with a healthy source of protein and important micronutrients, such as omega 3. More than half of the seafood we eat globally is farmed. As the world's fastest-growing food-production sector, farmed seafood will account for 60% of global fish consumption within the next 10 years. Farmed Atlantic salmon has become a major sector within the aquaculture industry, with farmed salmon consumption popular in markets including the EU, Japan and the US. In the UK, farmed salmon has risen to be the single most frequently purchased seafood in supermarkets. But does aquaculture provide the nutritional and environmental solution we need?
A core problem besets aquaculture production. 'Fed' aquaculture is reliant on wild-caught fish as a key feed ingredient, usually small ‘forage fish’, which are processed into two ingredients, fishmeal and fish oil: every year, around 15 million tonnes of wild fish from across the globe are used for this purpose. The omega 3 content in farmed salmon is obtained through feeding salmon with these ingredients, in particular fish oil. Many of the species used to make fishmeal and fish oil, such as herring, sprat and capelin, could be eaten directly by people, although they are not widely consumed currently. Fishing for these wild fish may have a negative effect on ocean ecosystems, but more than this, it is highly inefficient to feed wild fish to farmed salmon, to deliver nutrients to human diets which could be obtained by eating the wild fish directly. Alongside wild fish caught for this purpose, by-products and trimmings from fish caught for human consumption are used in salmon feed production.
This report, taking the Scottish farmed salmon industry as an example, shows how farmed salmon fed on wild fish is an inefficient and environmentally poor way to produce micronutrients for human diets. The report explores how we could meet our micronutrient needs without depleting ocean resources. This report uses data from the Scottish salmon industry, which produces approximately 166,000 tonnes of farmed salmon a year¹, to model different scenarios for obtaining micronutrients from seafood. Our findings show that by directly consuming a wide variety of small, oily, wild-caught fish, alongside increasing our consumption of farmed mussels (which do not require feed and provide high levels of some micronutrients) as well as consuming a smaller quantity of farmed salmon, we could access the same level of micronutrients as through the current level of farmed salmon production, while avoiding the capture of 77% of wild-caught fish currently used in salmon feed. Consuming a variety of seafood is in line with NHS guidance 'to ensure there are enough fish and shellfish to eat, choose from as wide a range of these foods as possible. If we eat only a few kinds of fish, then numbers of these fish can fall very low due to overfishing of these stocks'.
Salmon farming can provide a mechanism to prevent micronutrients from leaving the food system, but only if it restricts itself to using truly unavoidable by-products from capture fisheries, rather than fish caught specifically for feed. Ensuring the integrity of by-products supply chains, and avoiding the demand for by-products driving increased catches, requires regulation and governance. To fulfil this scenario, based on current data, the farmed salmon industry in Scotland would need to reduce in size by two thirds. The need for a just reorganising of employment is also discussed.
In high-income countries, where nutrition needs are generally well met and overconsumption of animal protein is both a health and environmental challenge, aquaculture can only be considered a sustainable approach to meeting nutritional needs if it does not rely on wild resources which could be directly eaten by people. This report re-frames debates concerning whether or not to eat fish and shows there is enough fish in the sea if marine resources are sustainably managed. Going beyond the question 'should we eat farmed salmon?' we get a richer more diverse scenario which could deliver a varied diet for human nutrition, more fish in the sea and a healthy prognosis for our ocean.
¹ Average production 2010-2018 (https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-fish-farm-production-survey-2018/pages/5/).