Use of wild fish in aquaculture and its effects on income and food for the poor 375
- THE ISSUE
During the last three decades, aquaculture has grown rapidly, expanding faster than
most other food sectors. However, it was already apparent in the early 1990s that
aquaculture faced a number of constraints. In particular, there was a concern and an
international debate about the use of fish as feed^1 in aquaculture. There were those who
argued that although not all cultured aquatic animals require substantial amounts of
animal proteins in their feed, aquaculture growth may be slowed significantly as fish
become a limiting resource.
In recent years, the focus of this discussion has widened to include the effects that
the use of fish as feed has outside the aquaculture industry. In particular, the world-
wide effort to reduce undernutrition and poverty has naturally brought aquaculture
and its impacts on poverty and nutrition into focus. As a consequence, there is a wide-
spread concern, both within governments and in civil society, that the use of fish as
aquaculture feed has more negative than positive outcomes for the poor.
Also, some of those debating these issues maintain that irrespective of the amount of
fish available, it is not ethically correct to use fish as feed for other fish or crustaceans
if the fish used as feed can be sold as human food. This is particularly the case if
carnivorous fish are exported from developing to developed countries; i.e. when wild
fish that could have fed the poor are used as ingredients for “luxury” farmed fish.
Others are primarily concerned that a growing demand for fish as animal feed will
lead to an increase in fishing effort on the wild fish stocks that are used as raw material
in fishmeal production. In their view, such pressure would lead to an even higher
overexploitation of the world’s marine fish stocks, which could have far-reaching and
negative consequences for the total supply of fish from the oceans and exacerbate a
situation in which the marine global resources base seems to be shrinking.
In this paper, the debate is narrowed to reviewing the practice of using fish as
aquaculture feed from the point of view of the poor and the undernourished. From
that perspective, the principal arguments advanced against the use of wild fish as
aquaculture feed are that the practice reduces either the income earning opportunities
of the poor or their access to cheap fish now and possibly also in the future. There are
four main arguments; three concern the supply of cheap fish and one concerns income
earning possibilities:
(i) when fish are obtained through reduction fisheries and then converted into
fishmeal, less fish are being provided as human food – and particularly for the
poor – than would be the case if fish were not converted into fishmeal and
then incorporated into industrially-made fish feeds used to grow fish and/or
shrimp;
(ii) when fish are obtained from the bycatch of commercial fisheries or from surplus
landings of small pelagic fisheries and then fed to cultured fish either directly or
as fishmeal, the quantities of cheap fish normally accessible to the poor in port
markets is reduced;
(iii) the growing use of fishmeal in fish feed contributes to unsustainable increases
in fishing pressure in reduction fisheries and, in the end, to the demise of some
wild fish resources, and, therefore, eventually to less fish being available for
human consumption, which will affect the poor in particular;
(^1) In this text, the expression “fish as food” refers to all fish that is destined for human consumption
in fresh or processed form. “Fish as feed” refers to all fish used as feed for animals. Such fish may be
provided to aquatic animals whole, minced, as one of the ingredients of farm-made fish/shrimp feeds
(this feeding method is sometimes described as fish being provided as “direct feed”) or in the form of
fishmeal/fish oil used as an ingredient in industrially made fish/shrimp feeds (sometimes referred to by
stating that the fish is used as “indirect feed”). “Industrial fisheries” or “reduction fisheries” are those
fisheries that are specialized in providing fish to the fishmeal and fish oil industries.