Every year, billions of fish almost one-fifth of the world’s annual wild catch are dried, pressed and ground into oil and meal. The majority of this material is then fed to other fish and crustaceans: in 2016, 69 percent of fishmeal and 75 percent of fish oil were used for seafood farming.
A report released in October by the Netherlands-based Changing Markets Foundation (CM) followed fishmeal and fish oil (FMFO) supply chains from fishery to fork. It connected a number of farmed-fish products sold in European supermarkets often bearing sustainability certifications to fishing practices the authors deemed highly unsustainable in India, Vietnam and the Gambia. Supermarkets selling the products include big names such as Sainsbury’s, ALDI, Tesco, Iceland, Marks & Spencer, Waitrose, REWE and Mercadona.
Proponents of aquaculture often frame it as both a solution to unsustainable fishing and a rapidly scalable way to feed the world. And the industry is growing: by 2030, it’s estimated that 62 percent of the world’s seafood will be farmed rather than wild-caught. But cheery images of locally farmed salmon swimming in fjords belie a grimmer reality: according to mounting research, aquaculture that relies on reduction fisheries, as fisheries dedicated to FMFO production are known, can actually be far more damaging to the marine environment than conventional fishing.
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