“Fishing for Catastrophe”: Farmed fish diets wiping out wild fish stocks in Asia and Africa, new report reveals

15 Oct 2019 --- A new report by Dutch-based Changing Markets Foundation has found links between top Dutch supermarkets and illegal, unsustainable fishing practices in India, Vietnam and The Gambia, which supply feed ingredients for farmed seafood products in high-income markets. The report, Fishing for Catastrophe, is the first to comprehensively map fishmeal and fish oil (FMFO) supply chains from fishery to fork. It concluded that supermarkets, including Albert Heijn, Lidl and Plus which sell farmed prawns, are causing fish stocks to collapse in some of the world’s most impoverished communities, due to the aquaculture industry’s reliance on FMFO for fish feed.

Many farmed-fish products, including prawns and Scottish salmon, are labeled as certified sustainable despite the damaging impact of the FMFO industry on marine ecosystems.

Meanwhile the IFFO, The Marine Ingredients Organisation, dismisses claims from the report, highlighting that “the majority of wild-caught fish is responsibly sourced.”

“Raw material for fishmeal and fish oil comes increasingly from byproducts (one third currently) that are left over after fish for food have been processed. Fishmeal and fish oil produced from these resources are used to provide many times more volume of edible fish through aquaculture than are consumed as a raw material,” Petter Martin Johannessen, IFFO Director General says in a statement.

The small pelagic fish species that form the bulk of the fisheries dedicated to fishmeal and fish oil production are a highly productive, natural resource with no, or very limited, food markets. “It is a good way to use material that would otherwise not be consumed,” Johannessen continues. “Their transformation into fishmeal and fish oil supports global protein production: quality feed means quality food.”

Speaking exclusively to FoodIngredientsFirst, Natasha Hurley from Changing Markets says, “People are becoming more aware of the pressures that our oceans are under, and many consumers who buy farmed salmon, are under the assumption that they are taking these pressures off. Sadly, and in reality, this is not the case.” 

Local Sanyang women processing fish on the beach in The Gambia.About a fifth of global wild fish catch is used to make fish meal and fish oil, most of which goes into aquaculture, but approximately 30 percent feeds pigs and chickens, which in itself, was a pretty standout statistic, says Hurley. “On that basis we started to look further and we found that this type of fishing is taking away fish from people who would otherwise eat it,” she explains. “There are much more efficient ways of feeding people, so that was a big lightbulb moment for us.”

“We then went on to find some pretty horrifying truths,” claims Hurley. “In places where people have relied on the oceans for generations and who had been living in harmony with the oceans, are now finding themselves in a situation where fish stocks are collapsing.”

There are huge ecological implications of indiscriminately taking fish out of the ocean, she states. “Fishermen know that this is a dead end, and at some point they will hit a wall, but the economics of this situation is forcing them to do this.” 

For people who are “living a hand to mouth subsistence, this is a huge problem, Hurley continues. “These people do not have a lot of cushion when it comes to absorbing price increases, and ultimately it could mean having one less meal a day or even bringing people to the point where they cannot afford to eat.”

There are significant food security issues here, and that is where the link with World Food Day comes in, according to Hurley. “It’s good to highlight these issues, certainly when all the eyes of the world are on food,” she says. 

Hurley also adds that Dutch consumers are “totally unaware that the seafood they are buying has a dark secret.”

The boom in aquaculture, to match the global demand for premium seafood products such as prawns and salmon, is fuelling unsustainable fishing practices, she stresses. 

“Climate change is already destabilizing our food system and that’s being exacerbated by the FMFO industry, which will take anything and everything out of the ocean to meet demand from the growing aquaculture industry,” Hurley states. 

EU prawn imports from India and Vietnam are mostly destined for the UK, Netherlands and Belgium, with the Netherlands also acting as a major re-exporting hub to other EU markets. In 2017 salmon, the majority of which is farmed, was the main species of fresh fish eaten by Dutch consumers, accounting for 33 percent in value and 20 percent in volume.  

“The economics of the FMFO industry are broken. If aquafeed companies do not move faster to source genuinely sustainable alternatives, they will face serious economic and reputational consequences that could substantially alter the predicted growth for the industry and those reliant on it,” Hurley explains. 

“The question is: what comes first – the collapse of natural ecosystems or the collapse of the economic sector that is responsible for the problem?” she muses. Trash fish including sardines, mackerels are sold to fishmeal factories in Cà Mau, Vietnam

There are alternatives to fishmeal and fish oil and Hurley says the biggest problem is that the aquafeed industries are still using fishmeal and fish oil when it could be using alternative ingredients.

“At a commercial scale there are companies selling alternative products already. It can be done. For example, UK retailer Tesco recently said that it is backing this in its supply chain and we are hopeful that developments like this mean that the industry is moving in the right direction. There are commercially viable alternatives out there which are available at a commercial scale. The problem is that consumers aren’t fully aware of the damage that is being done,” she explains. 

“There are so many different pressures on the planet at the moment and companies need to show that they are part of the solution and are genuinely able to operate responsibility,” adds Hurley. 

“It doesn’t have to be like this – it is possible to do things differently, but with any shift, it will require some pioneering companies to be really visionary.”

Anja Bakken Riise, Group Leader of Future in our Hands, a Norwegian organization committed to safeguarding the environment, also comments, “The aquaculture industry needs to move away from its reliance on fishmeal and fish oil, an industry which is jeopardizing local food security, livelihoods, health and the environment as it stands today.” 

“The transition to alternative feed resources is imperative to secure a sustainable future where the aquaculture industry is part of the solution and not the problem,” she states.

FoodIngredientsFirst has reached out to Albert Heijn, Lidl and Plus. 

By Elizabeth Green