Submitted Ideas
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Aquaculture still relies on wild fisheries
Posted by Francis Joyce | California, United States
Marine aquaculture is an increasingly important source of animal protein, but still largely depends on feeding fish meal to fish. How can we farm more healthy fish without increasing the burden on wild fisheries?
Your photo shows fish rests unfit for human consumption. These are also used for fisch meal and fish oil to satisfy the increasing demand of aquaculture. But these fish are already from upper trophic layers and are much more contaminated with anthropogenic pollutants as the traditionnal forage fish.
Recently, a study of a french consumer’s association revealed that organic farmed salmon is more contaminated with PCB, heavy metals and pesticides than the conventionaly raised salmon. The reason is that the rules of organic farming impose a high content of fisch meal (which is lightly contaminated) and the trend of conventional farming is to use more vegetables (which are without omega 3). None of these is satisfying.
Matthias Heilweck