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The use of whole fish derived from low trophic-level fisheries (also known as small pelagic species, or reduction fisheries) is often criticised as being inefficient. This paper offers a general view of the production of fishmeal and fish oil by species, country and region. The available edible yield of food produced using this resource under business as usual practices (i.e via fishmeal and fish oil production, aquafeed and aquaculture and a proportion consumed directly as food) against a hypothetical 100% consumption as food (with available by-product going to fishmeal and fish oil manufacture) is calculated using 2019 data. The results indicate that a 588,061 tonnes greater volume of available processed edible aquatic protein (wet weight) is estimated to be produced under business-as-usual practices, amounting to an additional 3.58 billion meals provided per annum. This is based on current conversion factors resulting from the use of fishmeal and fish oil as ingredients in combination with others in the manufacture of aquafeed. The paper discusses the use of this resource as raw material in the production of fishmeal and fish oil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fisheries and aquaculture production, imports, exports and equitability of distribution determine the supply of aquatic food to people. Aquatic food security is achieved when a food supply is sufficient, safe, sustainable, shockproof and sound: sufficient, to meet needs and preferences of people; safe, to provide nutritional benefit while posing minimal health risks; sustainable, to provide food now and for future generations; shock-proof, to provide resilience to shocks in production systems and supply chains; and sound, to meet legal and ethical standards for welfare of animals, people and environment. Here, we present an integrated assessment of these elements of the aquatic food system in the United Kingdom, a system linked to dynamic global networks of producers, processors and markets. Our assessment addresses sufficiency of supply from aquaculture, fisheries and trade; safety of supply given biological, chemical and radiation hazards; social, economic and environmental sustainability of production systems and supply chains; system resilience to social, economic and environmental shocks; welfare of fish, people and environment; and the authenticity of food. Conventionally, these aspects of the food system are not assessed collectively, so information supporting our assessment is widely dispersed. Our assessment reveals trade-offs and challenges in the food system that are easily overlooked in sectoral analyses of fisheries, aquaculture, health, medicine, human and fish welfare, safety and environment. We highlight potential benefits of an integrated, systematic and ongoing process to assess security of the aquatic food system and to predict impacts of social, economic and environmental change on food supply and demand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aquaculture is currently the fastest expanding global animal food production sector and is a key future contributor to food security. An increase in food security will be dependent upon the development and improvement of sustainable practices. A prioritization exercise was undertaken, focusing on the future knowledge needs to underpin UK sustainable aquaculture (both domestic and imported products) using a 'task force' group of 36 'practitioners' and 12 'research scientists' who have an active interest in sustainable aquaculture. A long list of 264 knowledge needs related to sustainable aquaculture was developed in conjunction with the task force. The long list was further refined through a three stage process of voting and scoring, including discussions of each knowledge need. The top 25 knowledge needs are presented, as scored separately by 'practitioners' or 'research scientists'. There was similar agreement in priorities identified by these two groups. The priority knowledge needs will provide guidance to structure ongoing work to make science accessible to practitioners and help to prioritize future science policy needs and funding. The process of knowledge exchange, and the mechanisms by which this can be achieved, effectively emerged as the top priority for sustainable aquaculture. Viable alternatives to wild fish-based aquaculture feeds, resource constraints that will potentially limit expansion of aquaculture, sustainable offshore aquaculture and the treatment of sea lice also emerged as strong priorities. Although the exercise was focused on UK needs for sustainable aquaculture, many of the emergent issues are considered to have global application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Efficiency assessments of marine ingredient use in aquaculture are required to fully understand their contribution to global seafood supply and their impacts on all UN Sustainable Development Goals. Fish In: Fish Out (FIFO) ratios have become the principal metric used to ensure aquaculture does not negatively impact wild fish stocks. However, several approaches have been advocated to calculate the FIFO ratio and there have been criticisms that the different approaches employed lead to over- or under- estimates of the dependence of aquaculture on marine ingredients. Critically, FIFO does not align with Life Cycle Assessment as a measure of other environmental impacts. In this paper we present an alternative method to calculate the FIFO ratio based on the principle of economic allocation (economic Fish In: Fish Out – eFIFO) as commonly used in Life Cycle Assessments. Economic allocation acts as a proxy for the nutritional value of ingredients and places higher importance on the more limiting co-products generated and their relative demand. Substitution of marine ingredients by alternate feed ingredients has significantly reduced the amount of fishmeal and fish oil in aquafeed formulations for most farmed fish species, resulting in a continually decreasing FIFO ratio. Results show that most aquaculture species groups assessed in this study are net producers of fish, while salmon and trout aquaculture are net neutral, producing as much fish biomass as is consumed. Overall, global fed-aquaculture currently produces three to four times as much fish as it consumes. Tracking historical prices of fish oil against fishmeal, the relative higher price of fish oil leads to relatively higher allocation of fish to fish oil compared to fishmeal. This leads to relatively higher eFIFO for species with high fish oil requirements. • Economic allocation is applied to the co-production of fishmeal and fish oil to assess the fish in: fish out (FIFO) ratio. • Economic allocation avoids double counting of fish resources. • Economic allocation gives a higher impact to the limiting feed ingredient, reflecting socio-economic drivers of fisheries. • The economic FIFO (eFIFO) ratio is compared to previously published FIFO ratios for the main aquaculture species groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]