386 Fish as feed inputs for aquaculture – Practices, sustainability and implications
dramatic improvement in the nutritional status of the poor if the fish could have been
channelled to them. In Asia and the Pacific, the number of undernourished in 2003–
2005 was estimated to have been 542 million. If the bycatch could have reached them,
they would each have had about 8.3 kg of extra fish annually.
Will aquaculture production, in part through the use of feed produced from the use
of 5.4 to 6.8 million tonnes of bycatch, somehow compensate for this loss? The species
(groupers, snappers, cobia, etc.) that are fed directly with this bycatch are generally
priced at levels that preclude their regular purchase by the poor. Neither does it seem
reasonable to argue that the production of these fish – generally sold in overseas
markets – will somehow cause other species to become cheaper in the localities where
the poor and undernourished in Asia do their food purchases, and that they, therefore,
somewhat benefit nutritionally from this form of aquaculture. Thus, it is probably not
reasonable to argue that the aquaculture production achieved by using bycatch as feed
somehow offsets the food “loss” that use of fish as direct aquaculture feed can be said
to cause in Asia.
However, the bycatch that is now used as aquaculture feed is brought to shore
only in some regions of Asia. Most of the bycatch used for aquaculture feed is landed
in China, Thailand and Viet Nam. Together these countries accounted for at least
90 percent of the bycatch used as direct aquaculture feed in 2002 (Stobutzki et al.,
2005). Although bycatches in India are substantial, only very small amounts are used
for aquaculture feed. In Bangladesh, most bycatch seems to be discarded at sea. In
Malaysia, the absolute quantities of bycatch used are relatively small, 43 000 tonnes
in 2002, but they are large on a per capita basis. In Indonesia, the Philippines and
Thailand, the amounts used are small on a per capita basis.
In the regions where bycatches are landed, they represent an opportunity for the
local poor and undernourished to obtain cheap fish when the bycatch is offered for
sale in wet fish markets. But as soon as preservation and/or transport is needed to
bring the fish to the poor, the price of the fish increases, and soon the very poor will
not have the means to purchase it. It does not seem reasonable to argue that alternative
food-fish markets for bycatch that is now used as aquaculture feed could realistically
be found outside the countries where these bycatches are landed. In fact, landings are
not economically available as food outside the regions surrounding landing centres^24.
However, it should be recognized that in those regions the nutritional difference could
be very significant. Additionally, some of them could cover quite vast territories in
densely populated a coastal regions (e.g. in China, India, Viet Nam), given the use of
long-established, low-cost curing methods and means of transport. On the one hand,
where the volumes are relatively small in comparison with the market, which is the
case in several countries (i.e. Bangladesh, Indonesia, India and the Philippines), local
demand probably exists for the quantities of bycatch that could be made available, and
the difference in food supplies could be considerable in the coastal regions concerned.
On the other hand, in China, Thailand and Viet Nam, the quantities of bycatch used as
aquaculture feed are probably too large, in relation to markets, to find a market among
the poor within the regions surrounding those landing centres where the bycatches
are landed. While a difference would be achieved within the coastal regions of these
countries, it is not evident that all the present bycatch could be disposed of as food.(^24) However, it should be recognized that the availability of bycatch as food for the poor is not only
threatened by its use in aquaculture. Already in 1998 Salagrama (1998) wrote about the use of bycatch in
India, where only a very small part of it is used as aquaculture feed: “The growing market demand for
all varieties of fish appears to affect poorer segments of the society – petty fish traders, processors and
lower-end consumers – negatively and requires careful and urgent attention”.