SPECIAL STORY 52 FEED & ADDITIVE MAGAZINE August 2023 Aquatic food production is expected to increase 15% by 2030. To be sustainable, the industry must make more efficient use of raw materials and reduce emissions. Strategies and products exist to help producers improve performance and mitigate environmental impacts. TOOLS FOR IMPROVING RAW MATERIAL EFFICIENCY AND REDUCING EMISSIONS IN AQUACULTURE Louise Buttle ANH Key Accounts Aqua Global dsm-firmenich Fabio Cervellione Director Nutrition & Health Solution Aqua Global G.O. Johnsen AS By 2030, aquatic food production is forecast to increase by a further 15 percent, mainly by intensifying and expanding sustainable aquaculture production. To be sustainable, aquaculture must become more efficient, produce more with less and reduce its environmental footprint. Two keys to this sustainability are making more efficient use of raw materials and reducing environmental emissions. MAKING MORE EFFICIENT USE OF RAW MATERIALS The environmental footprint of farmed seafood protein is mainly driven by the feed and raw materials. The industry has gradually replaced a large proportion of fish meal with soy protein and other vegetable protein meals, and shown flexibility of marine raw material sourcing with a move towards trimmings meals, and today, the aquaculture industry is searching for alternative or novel protein sources to allow greater flexibility in feed formulation. Soy is an indispensable source of digestible protein for humans and animals and as such its growth in demand has increased tenfold in the last 50 years. Part of that growth came from increases of crop and land productivity, but also from converting natural habitats like the Cerrado, the Amazon, the Chaco and even the Great Plains in US to soy production. That has serious environmental impacts on climate, water cycles, greenhouse gas emissions, soil health and biodiversity. Consumers and investors are putting pressure on the food value chain and more specifically the feed and animal production value chains to improve sustainability and reduce the use of deforestation soy.
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