Fish as feed inputs for aquaculture: practices, sustainability and implications

Fish as feed inputs for aquaculture – Practices, sustainability and implications: a global synthesis 19

as it has both low antigenicity (making it easy for young animals to digest) and anti-
inflammatory properties that improve disease resistance.
Aquaculture is the largest overall user of fishmeal, currently accounting for around
46 percent of global use. Pigs and poultry farming account for around a quarter of total
usage, with the remainder consumed by other types of livestock (figure 7). Ruminants
now account for only 1 percent, and this is likely to drop further because of persistent
fears that fishmeal could be accidentally or deliberately adulterated with (banned in the
EC) meat meal and bone meal (MMBM).
Although fishmeal and fish oil are shipped all over the world, three major regions
are large users: Asia (particularly China, Japan and Taiwan POC); Europe (particularly
Norway, the United Kingdom and Denmark); and the Americas (particularly the
United States of America, Canada and Chile).
In Asia, which is a major fishmeal consumer but a minor consumer of fish oil,
fishmeal usage is largely led by finfish and crustacean aquaculture. In China, large
quantities of fishmeal are incorporated into “concentrate” pre-mixes for poultry and
pigs.
In Europe, over half of fishmeal usage is now for aquaculture. Both fishmeal and
fish oil are used in large quantities by the salmon industry, particularly in Norway
and Scotland. The development of marine aquaculture (seabass, seabream, etc.) in
southern Europe, particularly in Greece, Spain and Turkey, has led to important flows
of fishmeal to these countries.
In the Americas, fishmeal and fish oil are widely used by the salmon aquaculture
industry in Chile, Canada and the United States of America. Fishmeal production in
the United States of America traditionally uses the menhaden resource (Tacon, 2009).
It is estimated that in 2004 the global finfish and crustacean aquaculture sector
consumed 3 452 000 tonnes of fishmeal (Figure 8a) or 52.3 percent of the total global
fishmeal production of 6 604 229 tonnes in 2004, and 893 400 tonnes of fish oil (Figure
8b) or 82.2 percent of the total global fish oil production of 1 085 674 tonnes in 2004
(FAO, 2006a).
The total estimated global amount of fishmeal and fish oil used in compound
aquafeeds has risen almost two-fold from 1995 to 2004, increasing from 1 728 000 to
3 452 000 tonnes in the case of fishmeal and from 494 000 to 893 000 tonnes in the case
of fish oil.

3.3.2 Fishmeal
The preference for the use
of fishmeal and fish oil in
all forms of diet for cultured
fish is based on a favourable
amino acid profile providing
all the essential amino
acids, the availability of
unknown growth factors and
some micronutrients, easy
digestibility, and availability
of highly unsaturated fatty
acids such as eicosapentaenoic
acid (EPA) (20:5n-3), docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) (22:6n-3) and arachidonic acid
(AA) (22:4n-6), all of which cannot be synthesized in adequate quantities by most
cultured stocks, in particular marine finfish.
Salmon, marine shrimp and marine fish each currently consume around a fifth of
the fishmeal used in aquaculture. Grower diets for salmon currently contain around
35 percent of fishmeal, while diets for marine shrimp and marine fish contain 22 and

FIGURE 7

Current and projected usage of fishmeal by sector

Source: FIN (2007)

56%

20%

12%

0%

12%

46%

24%

22%

1%

7%

Fish

Pigs

Poultry

Ruminants

Other

2007