Can Fish Farms End Food Insecurity?
A sea bass farm in Piran, Slovenia (Hakai).
By Rishi Kulkarni
In recent decades, aquaculture has grown to become one of the most important food sources for millions of people across the world. Aquaculture has been hailed as the next food revolution; many believe that it has the potential to alleviate world hunger. The best way to think about aquaculture is like any other farm, except it’s for fish. Fish are hatched in a controlled aquatic environment, where they are further fed and grown before being harvested. This approach helps to lessen the strain of fish cultivation on the environment by limiting overfishing, and it does not require any land (only a small amount of freshwater). At the same time, raising large amounts of fish in small areas can lead to the spread of disease and can cause water pollution.
An Economic Boon
Aquaculture has been driven primarily by small and medium-sized commercial farms as opposed to larger corporations or tiny backyard farmers. These aqua farmers have been able to grow large quantities of fish at affordable prices, making their products more available to low and middle-income consumers. The burgeoning industry is well-positioned to target food insecurity in the communities where it is most severe.
Aquaculture also has the potential to have a reverberating economic impact. New fish farms will create millions of jobs for people in coastal areas. Fish farms will also require a support infrastructure, which will create jobs in logistics, feed production, and other related businesses. This makes aquaculture a particularly attractive alternative to traditional agriculture. Traditional agriculture is characterized by an extremely high level of market concentration. In the US, a handful of corporations control the entire agriculture system, which limits the positive economic effects it can generate. Aquaculture’s potential for a significant economic impact on low and middle-income communities is unmatched by other alternatives.
Comparison to Agriculture
Although agriculture has been the primary mode of food production for almost all of human history, aquaculture has several benefits that make it worth considering as an alternative. In recent years, the environmental impact of agriculture has become increasingly concerning. Agriculture causes inefficient land use, large amounts of animal waste, and significant air pollution. One of aquaculture’s biggest benefits is that it allows us to use one of the most underutilized resources on the planet: the ocean. Whereas land is becoming increasingly scarce, the ocean remains uninhabited and largely unused. Combined with the fact that aquaculture produces significantly less pollution, it is clear that aquaculture is the better choice in terms of sustainability.
Some skeptics believe that aquaculture will be unable to produce enough volume of food to support the global population. On the contrary, aquaculture has the potential to produce 16 billion tons of fish per year if available ocean space is utilized, which can meet and even surpass our current and future food shortages. The potential of aquaculture holds even if we downsize this statistic; a body of water the size of Lake Michigan can produce five times the current global aquaculture production volume. Additionally, aquaculture-based diets could help to reduce malnutrition by providing necessary animal protein and nutrients at cheaper rates. Compared to agriculture, aquaculture can provide more nutritious food, have a smaller environmental impact, and deliver fish at a cheaper price. Aquaculture is a clear winner in terms of its value and efficiency in the global food market moving forward.
Future Implications
Though aquaculture has the potential to alleviate or even solve world hunger, there are some limitations that must be addressed. As larger aquaculture operations become more popular, the risk of disease spreading among fish becomes higher and higher. As fish farmers become more efficient and specialized, they may use pesticides and antibiotics to treat the water, causing more water pollution. If aquaculture fails to remain sustainable, then its benefits are minimized as it will be no better than traditional agriculture. Future investors, entrepreneurs, and business owners in the aquaculture industry should be focused on maximizing the sustainability of their businesses so that aquaculture can achieve its true potential as a sustainable source of food.
The role of aquaculture in solving the global food crisis is often overstated. Aquaculture and agriculture must work together to fulfill global food demands; it will take many years of growth and development before aquaculture can become the world’s primary source of food. The greatest value can be found in agriculture-aquaculture codependence. Some aqua farmers are turning the unneeded parts of fish into nutrient-rich compost that is given to agriculture farmers, resulting in zero-waste and more efficient operations for both sides.
Aquaculture’s role in the future is more accurately portrayed as a supplemental practice that can help make agriculture more efficient. As the synergies between agriculture and aquaculture are found, we can take advantage of their mutual benefits and take a step closer to the goal of eradicating world hunger and food insecurity.
