Wild caught fish still to play a critical role in feeding people in the run up to 2050

'Wild catch' has a wrong image, says Gorjan Nikolik, Associate a director Animal Protein with Rabo Bank International in Singapore.

It's being seen as if we are robbing nature and as a result is in decline, he told an international audience attending a one-day International China Summit on the day preceding the opening of VIV China, which is taking place in the New China Exhibition Centre in Beijing.

"The sector is changing and is dynamic and should be compared with forestry rather than an exploitative operation. "We can remove a certain amount."

He said that where pressure had been applied to a fishery and the fishing operations were substantial there was a vested interest in maintaining stocks, managing the resource and adopting regulations to control over fishing. He pointed to fisheries in North America, Australia, Japan and others where regulations controlling industry meant that industry could invest in larger vessels, operate securely with quotas and become profitable and sustainable businesses.

"Unfortunately, that is not the norm. Throughout Asia and Africa in particular there is still a need for regulation. Anywhere where you have small artisan fisheries you have damage to sustainability. We are doing a good job in several places but more needs to be achieved."

Without the development of aquaculture over the past 40-50 years, there would not have been any growth in fish consumption, he told the audience of 300 representatives from the intensive livestock industries. He said aquaculture now makes up about half of all fish processed for human consumption.

Mr Gorjan Nikolik of Rabo Bank International (right) with the editor of International Aquafeed, Professor Simon Davies at the International China Summit in Beijing this weekend

While wild capture fish would not increase in the years ahead, aquaculture would see the total fish producing industry increase by four to six percent growth for the next four to five years. However, after that growth would decline to about three percent per year.

He says the FAO forecasts the world needing between 20 million to 25 million tonnes of fish by 2020? That's a one-third increase in less than a decade; a target that is unlikely to be met, he suggested.

However, Mr Nikolik does see fish playing an increasing role in the human diet as the world addresses the food needs of nine billion people by 2050. He says the are some 300 species of fish worldwide that are currently included in the human diet of which some 50-60 species are of primary importance. While the west and Japan have a preference for marine species in their diets, China in particular enjoys fresh water species and carp in particular. Sixty percent of the world's aquaculture takes place in China and the majority of the fish produced is carp.

When compared with terrestrial animals, fish are particularly efficient in converting feed into flesh. While the feed conversion rate for pigs is now around 2.5:1 and poultry at 1.8:1 and leader in the animal world, tilipa records 1.6:1, shrimp at 1.5:1 and salmon at 1.1:1. The latter is the most advanced and may soon achieve a 1:1 conversion rate!

"Why is it possible for fish to achieve these extraordinary conversion rates?" he posed rhetorically.

Fish live in a world where there's little effect of gravity and as a result expend no energy to fight gravity. Therefore there is no need to build massive bone structures to support their weight. In addition, fish are endothermic - meaning they need to expend no energy to warm their bodies.

"Everything they eat goes into motion and growth. Also they have high fecundity, meaning they have lots of offspring." Pigs might be able to achieve an impressive 27 piglets per year, but fish can produce 50,000 eggs twice a year with mortality rates of between two and three percent," he adds.

Other factors that Mr Nikolik feels with swing the balance in favour of fish is the impossibility of diseases moving across the species barrier as can happen between testerial animals; "There is no disease that can move from fish species to a human." The structure of the resource also favours fish such as salt water, "which can't be used for anything else"; many land-based fish farming operations do not need fresh water supplies; a minimal CO2 and methane gas emission contribution is also an advantage over terrestrial species.

For aquaculture to achieve its potential, the industry needs huge investments. It's an industry that is fragmented, ranges from the developed to developing countries, has no global or regional marketing policy and is uncoordinated. There are currently too many species being farmed and resources into research and development is spread too thin, he adds. "We haven't even chosen the species to focus on," he told the audience.

Mr Nikolik says terrestrial animal production systems have been developed over 2000 years while aquaculture is less than 40 years old and for some species just 15 years old. While aquaculture does offer a valuable source of protein for the human diet in the decades ahead, it has many obstacles to overcome with the access to resources such as coast line allocation, being limiting factors.

Worldwatch Report: Aquaculture Tries to Fill World’s Insatiable Appetite for Seafood

Press release:
Total global fish production, including both wild capture fish and aquaculture, reached an all-time high of 154 million tons in 2011, and aquaculture is set to top 60 percent of production by 2020, according to new research conducted for Worldwatch's Vital Signs Online service. Wild capture was 90.4 million tons in 2011, up 2 percent from 2010. Aquaculture, in contrast, has been expanding steadily for the last 25 years and saw a rise of 6.2 percent in 2011, according to report authors Danielle Nierenberg and Katie Spoden.

Fish farms (Photo credit: mattroyal)

Growth in fish farming can be a double-edged sword, however. Despite its potential to affordably feed an ever-growing global population, it can also contribute to problems of habitat destruction, waste disposal, invasions of exotic species and pathogens, and depletion of wild fish stock.
Humans ate 130.8 million tons of fish in 2011. The remaining 23.2 million tons of fish went to non-food uses such as fishmeal, fish oil, culture, bait, and pharmaceuticals. The human consumption figure has increased 14.4 percent over the last five years. And consumption of farmed fish has risen tenfold since 1970, at an annual average of 6.6 percent per year. Asia consumes two thirds of the fish caught or grown for consumption.

The fish sector is a source of income and sustenance for millions of people worldwide. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, for every one job in the fish sector, three to four additional jobs are produced in secondary activities, such as fish processing, marketing, maintenance of fishing equipment, and other related industries. And on average each person working in the fish sector is financially responsible for three dependents. In combination, then, jobs in the primary and secondary fish sectors support the livelihoods of 660 million to 820 million people—10–12 percent of global population.

Although Africa is only the fourth largest producer of fish in the world, its water resources are highly sought after by larger, more-competitive fishing trawlers. Extreme overfishing occurs when foreign trawlers buy fishing licenses from African countries for marine water use. In West African waters, foreign trawlers pose a threat because factory ships from the United Kingdom, other countries within the European Union, Russia, and Saudi Arabia can outcompete the technologies used by local fishers. In Senegal, for example, a local fisher can catch a few tons of fish each day in the typical 30-foot pirogue. In contrast, factory ships from industrial countries catch hundreds of tons daily in their 10,000-ton factory ships.

Wild fish stocks are at a dangerously unsustainable level. As of 2009 (the most recent year with data), 57.4 percent of fisheries were estimated to be fully exploited—meaning current catches were at or close to their maximum sustainable yield, with no room for further expansion. Of the remaining fisheries in jeopardy, around 30 percent were deemed overexploited, while a little less than 13 percent were considered to be not fully exploited.

A number of government initiatives give some hope to a future of sustainable fishing. In the United States, the Magnuson-Stevens Act mandated that overfished stocks be restored; as of 2012, two-thirds of U.S. stocks are fished sustainably and only 17 percent are fished at overexploited levels. In New Zealand, 69 percent of stocks are above management targets, but Australia only reports 12 percent of stocks at overexploitation levels due to increased government fishery standards.
To maintain the current level of fish consumption in the world, aquaculture will need to provide an additional 23 million tons of farmed fish by 2020. To produce this additional amount, fish farming will also have to provide the necessary feed to grow the omnivorous and carnivorous fish that people want. Aquaculture is being pressured to provide both food and feed because of the oceans’ overexploited fisheries.

Continually increasing fish production, from both aquaculture and fisheries, raises many environmental concerns. If aquaculture continues to grow without constraints, it could lead to degradation of land and marine habitats, chemical pollution from fertilizers and antibiotics, the negative impacts of invasive species, and a lessened fish resistance to disease due to close proximity and intensive farming practices. To prevent these problems, policymakers, fishers, and consumers need to find alternative sources for fish feed, combat illegal fishing, encourage more-sustainable practices in aquaculture, acknowledge the potential effects of climate change on the oceans, and think critically about what and how much fish to consume.
Further highlights from the report:

• In 2011, inland aquaculture increased 6.2 percent to reach 44.3 million tons, while marine aquaculture increased 6.6 percent, to 19.3 million tons.
• Fish production rose 6.4 percent in Asia in 2010 (the latest year with regional data), amounting to 121.3 million tons. In 2010, Europe, a distant second, produced 9.7 percent (16.4 million tons) of the global fish supply.  
• In 2010, some 54.8 million people were directly engaged full-time or part-time in capture fisheries or aquaculture.

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