Aquaculture: Solution To Providing Food For the Growing Population

Aquaculture has been practiced for over 6,000 years from the Australian Aboriginals growing eels, to Ancient Romans growing oysters, and to the Chinese farming carp. Aquaculture is simply farming crops and animals but on the water instead of land.

More than ten years ago, world production of farmed seafood for human consumption had exceeded the production of beef. Likewise, it also exceeded the demand for wild-caught seafood for the first time in 2018.

Although aquaculture is not considered to be penalty-free, it is not hard on land and water and is not cruel to animals, unlike farming land animals.

Because humans have overfished the seas and oceans there has been a problem in catching fishes and other seafoods in the wild. The European Union said that the mismanagement had degraded the seabeds and reef communities, and sea turtles and other marine life has declined as a result of being caught up in nets.

Phys.org reported that sea farming is encouraged to reach the demand for food supply for the growing population of the world that is believed to reach the nine billion mark by 2030.

Australia's Booming Aquaculture Industry

Australia has a lot of aquaculture farms located all over the country. In Tasmania, salmon farming is famous. Then in New South Wales, there is the oysters, Murray cod, and silver perch farming.

While in Victoria, it's abalone and rainbow trout. There is also barramundi farming in WA and Northern Territory. Prawns in Queensland, and Bluefin tuna, oysters, barramundi, and yellowtail kingfish hatcheries in Southern Australia.

But there are a lot more left untouched, according to associate professor Joy Becker whose study is focused on fish diseases. While in Australia, she witnessed many fish diseases happening due to aquaculture.

To address these concerns, she and her team and several organizations work to ensure that new information about fish diseases is quickly sent to those who need it.

They are now looking at how to treat fishes to ensure that seafood from Australia is clean and safe that could successfully pass the criteria of the Food Safety Act. That means there should only be minimal to no chemical residues in the seafood.

She noted that drugs are only administered to fishes if they are sick and not as a preventive measure. All drugs must be prescribed by a veterinarian before it is given to the animals.

Feeding the Right Food to the Fishes

Farmed fishes should be fed with the right food to become healthy. But some of them are carnivorous because they eat other fish. According to Phys.org, these fishes are not fed with whole fish. Instead, they are given pellets that contain fish meal made from anchovies and pilchards from South America.

Becker said that the cost of the pellets is affected by El Niño or La Niña which sometimes brings problems to the farmers. Research has been conducted on minimizing fish meal in pellets by using vegetable-based options but they lack omega 3 fatty acids.

Ultimately, the goal of aquaculture is its efficiency in turning feed into convertible protein. Unlike land animals who carry themselves heavily on the land, fish can grow in a buoyant environment which means they need less food.