30 Fish as feed inputs for aquaculture – Practices, sustainability and implications
4.3.1 Barriers to buying aquafeeds sourced from sustainable feed fisheries
There are a number of practical reasons why it has been difficult for the feed
manufacturing industry to source fish feeds entirely from sustainable sources:- Lack of recognized criteria for suitability: At present the feed manufacturing
industry has no standardized definitions or criteria for the sustainability of feed
fisheries. It currently uses the FIN Sustainability Dossier for guidance, but this
dossier is essentially limited to examining stock assessment reports and regulatory
frameworks. It does not include some of the elements included in the assessment
criteria used in this study, such as non-target species impacts, regulatory
compliance levels, availability of key information and knowledge relevant to
sustainability, as well as economic and social factors. It is recommended that
principles and criteria for sustainable fisheries be based on those developed by
the FAO (FAO, 1995, 1999, 2003) and that ecosystem impacts (including socio-
economic and food security impacts) also address the issue of the intended use
and destination of the fish or shellfish in question (FAO, 1998). For example,
Article 2.f of the FAO CCRF states one of the major objectives of the Code as
being to “promote the contribution of fisheries to food security and food quality,
giving priority to the nutritional needs of local communities”. In particular,
“States should encourage the use of fish for human consumption and promote
consumption of fish whenever appropriate”, and discourage the use of foodfish
fit for human consumption for animal feeding (FAO, 1995, 1998; Tacon, Hasan
and Subasinghe, 2006). In addition, the MSC-derived framework described above
is also a useful starting point. The setting of sustainability criteria will ultimately
enable both producer and consumer to purchase selectively, creating a market for
a sustainable product. - Traceability: Although the traceability of feed ingredient sources is improving
rapidly, it may be difficult to ensure the origin of all fishmeal. For instance,
fishmeal is often blended to give constant characteristics of density, flow,
digestibility and protein content; thus species identity tends to be uncertain. Much
of the South American fishmeal is blended at the time of loading of tankers (both
ship and road) and hence cannot be traced beyond that point. Traceability is high
on the feed industry’s agenda, and some manufacturers are looking to traceability
schemes such as the Universal Feed Assurance Scheme (UFAS) and Feed Materials
Assurance Scheme (FEMAS) to reduce the purchase of feed products where there
is not a full traceability chain. - Fishmeal nutritional performance: Restrictions on certain fish-feed stocks may
have implications for fishmeal nutritional performance. For instance, smaller fish
(i.e. salmon <1 kg) need high levels of amino acid histidine, which is found in much
higher levels in South American fishmeal. Exclusion from these sources would
necessitate much higher inclusion levels of European fishmeals and thus higher
levels of consumption. There is the potential for substitution with porcine blood
meal, but this is likely to meet retail and consumer resistance. Conversely, the
use of meals from the Northern Hemisphere producced at low temperature (LT)
for larger fish is favoured because they are higher in protein and of the highest
digestibility. For instance, blue whiting meal is a highly digestible meal and while
some users dislike its higher ash level, most processors find it worthwhile and may
be reluctant to reduce its use. - Supply assurance: Should the aquaculture industry become selective for more
sustainable fishmeal stocks, the demand for those fish product from these stocks
will increase. This has a number of implications:
o Fishmeal Supply may be restricted for reasons outside the control of fishmeal
manufacturers and their clients (e.g. the wide inter-annual variability of South
American production due to El Niño events).