The State of the World's Fisheries and Aquaculture from a feed ingredient perspective

The 2024 edition of the Food and Agriculture Organisation’s State of the World’s Fisheries and Aquaculture report was released on the 8th June, Oceans’ Day. An FAO flagship publication, it serves as a reference point for the food and seafood sectors.

This edition provides a sobering analysis about the growth of aquaculture and confirms its role as the fastest growing sector for animal protein production. For the first time in 2022, aquaculture surpassed capture fisheries in aquatic animal production (excluding algae) with 94.4 million tonnes, representing 51% of the world total.?In the context of aquaculture’s expansion, an increasing share (almost 90%) of the aquatic animal production (capture and aquaculture) is currently devoted to direct human consumption. The amount utilised for fishmeal and fish oil production peaked in 1994 at over 30 million tonnes before declining in the subsequent two years to reach 16.7 million tonnes in 2022. While this seems counter-intuitive, as the fastest growing part of aquaculture is fed aquaculture, these data reveal a few interesting trends:

• Over time, the adoption of good management practices and certification schemes has decreased the volumes of catches of species targeted for reduction to fishmeal. The FAO indicates that “Areas with catches oscillating around a globally stable value since 1990, associated with the dominance of pelagic, short-lived species has the highest percentage (68%) of biologically sustainable stocks”.
• The use of circular raw materials to produce fishmeal keeps growing, representing 40% of marine ingredients’ production. Facilities and vessels are now better equipped to process fish and set aside the by-products that would otherwise have been discarded. And aquaculture is now a major player in the provision of marine ingredient raw materials, with by-products from farmed salmon, tilapia and pangasius sectors being significant contributors.
• The formulation of feed keeps improving to leverage the nutritional features of fishmeal and fish oil and use them at key stages of the fish’s growth. Feed producers look at optimising the balance between protein and energy and base the feeds’ design on absorbable supplies. They enhance precision in fish nutrition by focusing on an ideal digestible amino acid profile rather than just crude or digestible protein.
• There is an increased scrutiny placed on the net nutrient productivity associated with resource use, which pushes for strategies to make the most of all the nutrient sources and leverage their complementarity.

Aquaculture is meant to keep growing and provide solutions to address food challenges. Every value chain stakeholder needs to demonstrate its interest in maintaining a high standard of seafood production. Trust and long-term commitment are needed and should influence how buyers and their suppliers manage their relationship to navigate global supply chains.