FEATURE
Asking the tough questions to ensure a prosperous future for
marine ingredients by Petter Martin Johannessen, IFFO, UK
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ince I joined IFFO as Director General in September, and after travelling and meeting members and stakeholders, I see great interest in developing this unique industry to meet the future nutritional needs in feed. The IFFO team is spread across three offices (London, Lima and Beijing) to engage with our largest markets, gathering data across 40 countries, leading technical projects and assisting members. Once a year the whole team gathers together for the Annual Conference, and I was fortunate to have this early in my new role as Director General. I was previously in touch with IFFO as a member through Cargill Aqua Nutrition (also known as EWOS) and attended the conferences, and I am impressed at how the team works together organising this high-level event. This year’s conference in Rome was a success and the bold overall aim was to question where the industry is and look at what needs to be done for sustainable development and growth for the industry. The stage was first set with IFFO’s President Eduardo Goycoolea leading a high-level panel of industry leaders from across our supply chain to discuss the future of marine ingredients and the key challenges that we face. Discussions from the panel highlighted key themes which were then echoed by other speakers throughout the conference. The first point that was made from across the panel, was the vital role that marine ingredients play, but the increasing challenge of population growth and resource scarcity. Árni M Mathiesen, Assistant Director-General, of the FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Department, painted a clear picture of the challenge that we face, in terms of global food security with the number of undernourished people rising to 821 million in 2017. He noted that, with less resources, the industry must respond with more innovation. This was echoed by George Chamberlain, President of the Global Aquaculture Alliance, who called marine ingredients the gold standard, but stated that supply must be increased through new
"As an industry we need to better understand the value drivers downstream to better predict future impacts and identify areas of growth. This is an area that I have experience in from my previous roles and one that I will focus IFFO’s efforts on" innovative sources and the increase use of by-products. Ole Eirik Lerøy , the Chairman of the Board for Marine Harvest ASA, emphasised the importance of aquaculture in producing more food, and stated the clear reality facing his company, that they had reduced the use of marine ingredients as much as they could in their feed chain and growth would now have to come from alternative sources. In terms of by-products, the industry has some obvious potential for growth and an IFFO-funded study, by Jackson and Newton in 2016, showed that in 2015 although roughly 66 percent of fishmeal was made from whole fish, by-products accounted for 34 percent. There are some practical difficulties in collecting some of the raw material, and it may not be possible to achieve total recovery given the way the global seafood sector is structured, but there are certainly opportunities to achieve more with capture fisheries and aquaculture by-product.
28 | December 2018 - International Aquafeed