Marine aquaculture:  a solution towards sustainable food ?

Yes… but ….

A study led by Sayari with 5 master students from Ecole Polytechnique.

We present next week at the SETAC Dublin conference our study on  “marine aquaculture and biodiversity”.

Marine aquaculture is presented as one of the key elements for a transition towards sustainable food systems. However, it may encompass significant impacts on ecosystems.

Farmed fish are most of the time fed by smaller fish, processed or not. It is the case for Peruvian anchovies, that are an essential part of the feed  for Norvegian farmed salmons. Hence, preserving wild salmons has led to threatening another fish species.

Moreover, farmed escaped salmons are disrupting native salmon populations through various cause-effect chains. We model these chains through semi-quantitative indicators characterizing “invasive species”.

We therefore bring further enlightening to marine aquaculture : in order to be sustainable: 

– we need to focus on fish feed value chain, 

– specific care is needed on lowering escape of fish from farm to adjacent native ecosystems.