INTERVIEW 44 FEED & ADDITIVE MAGAZINE August 2023 What are the ways to optimize feed ingredients and feed quantity (feed conversion rate) for an efficient fish farm? Aquaculture has made significant improvements in nutritional understanding over the past 50-60 years, and we are moving even closer to ‘precision nutrition’, refining and polishing what we already know and making necessary adjustments and modifications. The real shift in feed optimisation – ingredients and quantity to effect farm performance - in the coming years is expected through digitisation. Cargill Aqua Nutrition will bring to market tools and capabilities that support farmers to track in near-real-time, fish performance to meet pre-determined goals and KPIs. These tools will support farmers to maximise productivity through the pillars of nutrition, sustainability and fish health, to protect fish welfare, to care for the environment and to deliver exceptional financial results. What does fish welfare mean? Can fish welfare be achieved by feeding? Fish welfare is at the core of fish nutrition. Our capabilities, products and services are developed and delivered with fish welfare in mind. Sometimes environmental factors outside of the farmer’s control can impact fish welfare, such as temperature, salinity, algal blooms, disease can all have significant impacts on fish welfare. While farmers do everything within their power to ensure welfare is paramount importance, without sufficient and proper nutrition, the welfare of animals will inevitably be impacted, which is why feed composition and feeding practices are critical to fish welfare. How possible is it to reduce the environmental footprint of farm fisheries while feeding fish in a way that maintains health and welfare? Through our signature SeaFurther™ Sustainability program, Cargill is working with customers to help reduce carbon emissions in salmon farming by at least 30% by 2030. This can be achieved by creating tailored approaches that fit the need for each company, considering a comprehensive carbon footprint inventory and identifying ways to make reduction, such as improving feed conversion rates, reducing diesel emissions or identifying and developing lower footprint raw materials for feed. Cargill Aqua Nutrition can also support the farmer by providing solutions to improve fish health and welfare, to boost the immune system, reduce mortality, and ensure fish remain satiated when compromised. Fewer losses (mortality and/or wasted feed) during these times, have a direct impact on the environmental footprint despite the intent being a direct impact on fish health and welfare: more fish are produced to harvest using the same resources, reducing the footprint per tonne of fish produced. Cargill is working on solutions that do not require a reactive approach to fish health and welfare and that can have a positive effect on the environmental footprint. In 2019, we launched Essential Nitrogen; a dietary concept aimed at reducing the amount of total nitrogen in the feed yet the ability for fish to convert as efficiently to maintain similar growth and FCR results as standard feed. This feed concept not only allows farmers to ‘do more with less’, but also ensure there are less nitrogen emissions into the environment, reducing the impact on the local environment through nitrogen fuelled eutrophication driven by the nitrogen not absorbed from the feed into the fish. Essential Nitrogen is a precursor to new concepts and dietary designs that will revolutionise further the nutrition, sustainability and fish health space. Prior to this, the strongest tool for the farmer to manage nitrogen losses was through feed management to minimise uneaten feed and biomass capping. With better nitrogen management through nutrition and feed management, we expect farmers to be able to work more easily within their legislative limits. Which feed ingredients/additives both support nutrition and protect the environment? Cargill commits to buying certified fishmeal and oil, and we are engaged in many fishery improvement programs (FIPs) to develop more sustainable management and fishing practices. We are also collaborating with WWF and Finance Earth to establish a global fishery improvement fund, which
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