Caged up world: What happens when aquaculture becomes a new normal?

The 21st of November is World Fisheries Day, and this year is for the second consecutive year, aquaculture has surpassed capture fisheries by volume. What does this mean for us as consumers? Moreover, what should we be concerned about regarding aquatic food systems sustainability?

The controversial debates in aquaculture

On average, each person eats around 21 kgs of aquatic food per year. This demand goes up, driven by the growing of world population, urbanization and economic development. According to “The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2024” (SOFIA report), about one-third of marine fisheries stock is overfished. This raises the question: Where do our aquatic food products come from when the ocean ecologies are in crisis? This is where aquaculture products started to come into the picture.

On the one hand, aquaculture holds great hope and policy aspiration to provide enough aquatic food to feed the world. The FAO has projected that, given today’s consumption rate, aquatic food supply chains will need to keep up production by 22% to meet the global demand by 2050. A significant part of this increased supply is expected to come from aquaculture.

On the other hand, the fast growth of aquaculture comes with its own challenges. First, aquaculture relies on a large amount of aquaculture feed, which contributes to ocean degradation and social injustice. Fishing up the aqua-feed ingredients is often seen as harmful to local communities. For instance, the report ‘Feeding a Monster’ shows how the European aquaculture industry has exploited fish stocks from West African communities, resulting in food insecurity and livelihood loss. Additionally, examining the trends in aquaculture expansion from the 1990s to 2022 (as detailed on page 4 of the SOFA report), we see that inland aquaculture has grown from 12.1 to 59.1 million tons during this period. This significant growth raises concerns about land grabbing, disease and pollution linked to the intensification of inland aquaculture productions.

Statistic: Where to find aquaculture products?

Asia has been the main region of aquaculture production. According to SOFIA report, the leading aquaculture producers in Asia include China, India, Vietnam, Bangladesh and Indonesia. Approximately 94.6 % of employment in the aquaculture sector is in Asia. In contrast, Norway is the world’s second-largest exporter of aquatic food, just after China, largely due to its salmon industry. The growth of aquaculture production across diverse geographical regions in both the Global North and South comes with complex resource governance mechanisms and standards. However, ecological standards, such as the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC), do not cover all aquaculture products and often face criticism for excluding a diverse range of actors from participating in the rule-making of these ecological certificates.

Challenges to making aquatic food sustainably

Aquaculture relies heavily on a significant supply of feed to sustain. Most aquaculture-feed ingredients are plant-based, and there’s a fast-growing trend towards developing high-protein supplements that are more environmentally friendly. However, the industry still depends on fishmeal and fish oil as primary protein sources. Fishmeal is a protein-rich flour made by cooking, pressing, drying and grinding fresh raw fish, shellfish, or fish parts, while fish oil is obtained by pressing cooked fish and centrifuging the liquid. Approximately two-thirds of fishmeal and fish oil produced worldwide is consumed by aquaculture feed.

Every year, around 15 million tonnes of fish are processed into fishmeal and fish oil production per year, compared to 70 million tonnes consumed directly as food by humans. This raises a valid concern regarding ‘catching fish for fish feed instead of food for people. While some may argue that most forage fish used in fishmeal and fish oil production help transform by-catch or trash fish into something valuable, the debate remains significant. The business model that transforms this trash fish into treasure facilitates the direct sale of this trash fish to fishmeal and fish oil production. As a result, boat owners are more likely to catch non-targeted species, knowing that there is a market for them. With the decline of capture fisheries, there is an increasing need for aquaculture, which in turn hikes up the demand for fishmeal and fish oil production. Thus, the vicious circle continues!

Who is handling aquaculture food?

Over the past decade, labour exploitations in fisheries have exploded, though this issue is less addressed in aquaculture. Taking shrimp production as an example, there are various groups of workers handling your shrimp from production to plate. The origin of your aquaculture could dictate the labour laws and working conditions that the workers face. However, in the aquaculture business, buyers often set the price. Due to high competition on cost, supermarkets and retailers in the Global North have pressured the Global South producers to cut labour costs at the farm level.

A recent report, ‘Laboring for less so supermarkets profit more’, shows how supermarkets’ concentrated procurements have driven the production cost down to the workers along the production lines of shrimp farming in Vietnam. For instance, the report shows the reduced incomes among fishmeal workers, hatchery workers, shrimp farm workers, harvesters and peelers after the pandemic, despite shrimp prices increasing in US and EU supermarkets. Moreover, the workers’ incomes depend on the yield production without regular salary or written contract.

Notes from the author

This blog is merely an introduction to this new normal to highlight the importance of aquaculture production. This blog hopes to bring a nuance to the question of aquatic food sustainability. The answers to what we should eat depend on where our aquatic food comes from and how it has been handled. Researchers, consumers and NGOs continue to explore the effectiveness of aquaculture eco-labels. To date, there is no global certification that addresses directly labour rights in the  aquaculture sector.

Author: Alin Kadfak is a researcher at SLU. She is currently running three projects focusing on labour rights in fisheries and fishmeal supply chains with S.E.Asia focus. Check out the relevant works at www.justseafood.org or Fishy Work Podcast.