FEATURE
Fish oil Fishmeal and ...
“THE NEED FOR FEED”
I
by Neil Auchterlonie, IFFO
t is stating the obvious to say that the use of fishmeal and fish oil in aquafeeds has changed over time. With high inclusion rates of fishmeal and fish oil common in early modern aquafeeds, and especially those for salmonids, these materials could be regarded as the foundation of fed aquaculture as we know it (Auchterlonie, 2016). The provision of diets that met the farmed fish nutritional needs essentially freed up the industry to develop systems technology and health controls. Therefore making the advances in the volume of production that was required to achieve viability. Inclusion rates seen with those early diets were 90 percent or more for total marine-sourced materials (Ytrestøyl, Aas, & Åsgård, 2015), and this was only feasible when the aquaculture industry was of relatively small volume. Over time the partial substitution of marine ingredients with those of other (terrestrial, mainly vegetable but some animal proteins) origin occurred to allow a continuing supply of feed to aquaculture within a global market. The challenge was in meeting the volume of supply required for the developing aquaculture industry. There is an economic consideration too, that emanates from the volume of supply point. Although marine ingredients may appear as higher cost compared to the alternatives in the market, it is simplistic to look at feed ingredients from solely that perspective as bioeconomic models have a great deal more complexity, and feed formulations are not all about price – the performance of the material needs to be taken into account. This has already been shown with fishmeal in respect of feeds for weaning piglets (Ma et al., 2013) where the growth and health advantages of high quality fishmeal in those feeds provide benefits that extend across the whole production cycle. The same may well be true for fish species. (Interestingly, it is the comparative cost of marine ingredients that provides the financial attraction from the investment sector that supports the development of alternatives, as discussed in Naylor et al. (2009) who describe the situation thus: “price signals will provide the best inducement for technological and management change”, even if – nutritionally - those alternatives are generally quite different to fishmeal and fish oil.) Aquaculture is the most successful protein sector in recent times, and – generally - is an efficient way of producing protein for humanity largely as a result of growing cold-blooded animals in an environment that supports their body weight. Aquaculture development has been dramatic and now accounts for 44.1 percent of total seafood production (Food and Agriculture Organisation, 2016). This development will continue and forecasts for growth remain high even though the rate of growth has slowed from 7.2 percent over 1995-2004, to 5.8 percent from 2005 to 2014. Regions or countries are developing aquaculture strategies, within often sit growth targets, and although fed aquaculture is only part of the total figure (FAO estimates this at 69.2 percent, some of which will also be extensive production (In extensive production feed inputs may be provided to the farmed stock, but that is not the only source of nutrition, and external food items from within the farm environment may also support growth.)), it is clear that there will be a continuing demand for increasing aquafeed volume for some time to come. Alternative proteins and oils have been suggested for many years and other than the obvious replacements that have already occurred with vegetable-based ingredients, for the most part the commercial reality for many of the alternatives still seems some way off. At the current time, the key issue for supporting aquaculture development is to continue to make the best use of the fishmeal and fish oil resource we have.
Fisheries supplying fishmeal
In a normal year global supply of fishmeal is in the region of five million tonnes, with an additional one million tonnes, or just under, of 16 | October 2017 - International Aquafeed