Image Event recording A 20-year retrospective review of global aquaculture This paper reviews the development of the global aquaculture sector between 1997 and 2017. It finds that while the feed efficiency of aquaculture has improved, aquaculture remains strongly dependent on marine feed ingredients. It identifies strong potential for cultured molluscs and seaweed to contribute to both nutritional security and ecosystems services. Read
Image Reports Making Scottish farmed salmon sustainable This policy brief from UK food waste NGO Feedback recommends that policymakers reform the Scottish salmon aquaculture industry and support the expansion of unfed aquaculture, such as mussel farming. Read
Image Essay To eat fish or not to eat fish? That is the wrong question Christina O’Sullivan is the Campaign & Communications Manager at Feedback, where she manages the ‘Fishy Business’ campaign. Feedback is a campaign group working to regenerate nature by transforming the food system. Christina has an MSc in Food Policy from the Centre for Food Policy, City University. She has worked at the Cornell Food and Brand Lab and the Global Centre for Food Systems Innovation at Michigan State University. Read
Image Journal articles Scenarios for global aquaculture and human nutrition This paper, co-authored by FCRN member David Little, sets out four scenarios for the global future of aquaculture - food sovereignty, blue internationalism, aqua-nationalism and aquatic chicken - and discusses how each scenario could affect human wellbeing and environmental health. Read
Image Journal articles Greenhouse gas emissions from global aquaculture In this paper, FCRN member Michael MacLeod reports that global aquaculture produced around 0.49% of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2017 - a similar quantity to the emissions from sheep meat production. When emissions are measured per kg of edible product, the paper finds aquaculture to have low emissions intensity relative to meat from goats, cattle, buffalo and sheep and similar emissions intensity to meat from pigs and chickens. Read
Image News and resources The possibilities and challenges of kelp This article by FoodPrint discusses the tension between the purported environmental benefits of kelp farming and consumers’ lack of familiarity with kelp as a food, and describes “regenerative” kelp farming systems that also produce oysters, clams and mussels. It sets out several ways in which kelp can be used, including in foods such as pesto or lasagne, as well as other uses such as bioplastics, fertiliser, biofuel and animal feed. Read
Image Journal articles Sustainable bivalve farming for food security in the tropics In this paper, FCRN member David Willer argues that bivalve shellfish aquaculture could provide a nutritious and low-impact source of protein to nearly one billion people, particularly in the tropics. Read
Image Reports Certification’s failure to protect wild fish This report from UK food waste NGO Feedback argues that sustainability certification of wild-caught forage fish as feed for Scottish salmon aquaculture companies could in fact be driving overfishing. Read
Image Reports The nutritional inefficiencies of the Scottish salmon industry This report from UK food waste NGO Feedback uses the Scottish salmon aquaculture sector as an example to argue that feeding wild fish to farmed salmon is an inefficient and environmentally damaging way of providing micronutrients to humans. It suggests that replacing some farmed salmon consumption with small wild-caught fish and farmed mussels could provide the same level of micronutrients while protecting fish stocks. Read
