Aquaculture already produces
nearly half of the seafood we
consume (or more, if you include
seaweed), and we’ll have to
increase that if we are to avoid
decimating wild fish stocks.
Under a fishing ban, aquaculture
could be our only source of
seafood, meaning that, initially,
we’d be eating a lot of Atlantic
salmon – by far the most farmed
fish across Europe. “[Wild]
fisheries allow you a diversity of
products that aquaculture would
probably take many years to get
to,” says Dr Sofia Franco at the
Scottish Association for Marine
Science. But she hopes to see a
wider range of farmed seafood on
the menu in future, as expertise
in different species and farming
systems develops. Until now,
production has been largely in
farms open to the sea, rivers, or
lochs. Newer, land-based systems,
such as tanks with recirculatingwater, could reduce pollution and
damage to aquatic environments
compared to the older systems.
But could you supply all the
world’s fish suppers without
using a drop of actual seawater?
Dr Rebecca Gentry, a marine
scientist at Florida State
University, suggests we wouldn’t
need to. Theoretically,
aquaculture in the sea could
produce the equivalent of the
world’s fishing catch in less than
1 per cent of the ocean surface,
her 2017 paper shows. “It’s an
interesting thought experiment,”
she says. “If we close all wild
fisheries, look at this huge
amount of ocean area that we’re
no longer having an impact on.”
She doesn’t want to paint “too
sunny a picture” of aquaculture,
though, noting that any large-
scale food production
fundamentally changes the
environment.Seafood
farms
could step
up to meet
demand
WHAT IF... FEATURE2