Fish Farms Out

The Facts

Salmon, sea bream, sea bass…

…All of which are carnivorous animals, dependent on consuming smaller fish – are being grown in industrial-sized pens in our oceans and waterways. The result has been disastrous for the fish, for our health and for our oceans and waterways. It is a lose-lose-lose proposition.

Supporters of industrialized aquaculture say that we need more protein to feed the world. But the dirty little secret of farmed fish is that they need MORE wild fish to eat than the fish they produce. And those wild fish are being taken from areas of the world where people are dependent on that source of food for their survival. The sad reality is that ramping up carnivorous fish farm operations makes world food security worse, not better.

Scientific evidence keeps coming to light on the environmentally damaging aspects of industrial fish farming. For example, studies have linked the following problems with fish farms:

Fact 1

Up to 20% of wild-caught fish are used as feed to produce a much smaller quantity of farmed fish.¹

Fact 2

increase in harmful algal blooms, exacerbating impacts from global warming.²

Fact 3

negative impact on critical Posidonia meadowS.³

Fact 4

mass fish die-offs.⁴

Fact 5

uncontrolled use of the carcinogen formaldehyde. ⁵

Fact 6

large amounts of microplastics and debris left behind in the waters by the fish farms.⁶

Fact 7

Prophylactic and overuse of antibiotics.⁷

Fact 8

Marine ecosystem turned into dead zones from immense amounts of fish feces and excess feed.⁸

These negative impacts will only increase as ocean temperatures continue to rise. The bottom line is that in our current world there is NO farming of carnivorous fin fish which is environmentally sustainable. We need concrete, enforceable international standards for the remediation of damaged environments and the expansion of genuinely sustainable aquaculture options.

[1] https://news.mongabay.com/2019/12/catching-fish-to-feed-fish-report-details-unsustainable-fishmeal-and-oil-industry/,
https://ig.ft.com/supermarket-salmon,
https://feedbackglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Feedback-BlueEmpire-Jan24.pdf

[2] https://www.mdpi.com/1424-2818/13/8/396,
https://openknowledge.fao.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/9aeb8ade-a623-4954-8adf-204daae3b5de/content#:~:text=The%20results%20indicate%20that%20climate,most%20dependent%20on%20the%20sector

[3] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0025326X08003160,
https://www.academia.edu/6605373/Indirect_effects_of_fish_cage_aquaculture_on_shallow_Posidonia_oceanica_seagrass_patches_in_coastal_Greek_waters?email_work_card=thumbnail

[4] https://www.uvic.ca/socialsciences/info-for/faculty-staff/announcements/865-million-farmed-salmon-die-off-worldwide-2012-2022.php,
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2421227-salmon-farms-are-increasingly-being-hit-by-mass-die-offs/,
https://time.com/6957610/farmed-salmon-dying/

[5] https://theferret.scot/formaldehyde-used-200-times-fish-farm-industry/

[6] https://www.ozon-ngo.gr/news_det.php?id=144,
https://nasf.is/en/farmed-salmon-factories-pump-microplastics-into-icelands-clean-waters-and-on-the-consumers-plate/

[7] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-78849-3

[8] https://theferret.scot/desolation-around-greek-fish-farms/https://theferret.scot/desolation-around-greek-fish-farms/

Join over 160 Organizations WORLD WIDE asking the UN FAO, the EU and our world leaders to EXCLUDE carnivorous fish farming from sustainable aquaculture policies.

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Here is a chronicle of our ongoing correspondence on the subject with Manual Barange head of the FAO at the UN