Animal Proteins: Seafood Could Help Meet Growing Demand

In the coming years, seafood could account for 25% of the ever-growing demand for animal proteins. In fact, policy reforms and technological advancements could boost seafood production by up to 75% over the next three decades.   By 2050, the global population is estimated to grow by nearly 2 billion people, bringing the total to approximately 9.8 billion people to feed. This poses a real challenge, especially since 815 million people worldwide are already undernourished. This is all the more pressing given that producing more and more food through land-based farming presents numerous challenges, particularly due to declining yields, competition for land and water, as well as various environmental and health issues associated with large-scale agriculture. Hoping to meet this growing demand for animal proteins—which will inevitably accompany population growth—researchers around the world have turned their attention to food production from the ocean. And according to a new study in *Nature*, seafood has the potential to meet a large portion of our future protein and nutrient needs. By examining the main sectors of marine food production—wild-caught fisheries as well as the mariculture of finfish (tuna and snapper) and bivalves (clams, oysters)—the researchers were able to model sustainable supply curves that account for ecological, economic, and regulatory factors, as well as the sector’s technological limitations. They correlated these curves with realistic scenarios for food supply demand to estimate how much food the ocean could provide as the global population grows. Currently, the ocean accounts for only 17% of the animal production industry. But as marine aquaculture technology improves and policies surrounding the ocean and its resources are reformed, food from the sea could increase by 21 to 44 million metric tons per year, according to the researchers. This corresponds to 12% to 25% of the estimated increase in animal proteins needed to feed the entire population by 2050. This is especially true given that rising incomes and changing dietary preferences will significantly increase the demand for nutritious food in the coming years. The ocean could therefore play a major role in meeting this demand—particularly through bivalve aquaculture, which, according to the study, offers the greatest potential for expansion in terms of food from the sea. But we must not delude ourselves: many of the challenges and obstacles that limit land-based agriculture also apply to aquaculture and fisheries. However, this research shows that sustainable solutions can play a major role in global food supply and food safety. “Overfishing, pollution, and unsustainable mariculture give the impression that it is impossible to sustainably increase the supply of food from the sea. But unsustainable practices, regulatory barriers, and other constraints can limit seafood production,” explains marine ecologist Jane Lubchenco. “Changes in policies and practices could benefit both conservation and food production. ” Policy changes in U.S. fisheries are a good example. They have led to a significant reduction in overfishing and the recovery of wild stocks, thereby increasing fish abundance in U.S. waters as well as fishing yields. The study’s authors outline four pathways to sustainably increase ocean-based food production:

• Better management of wild fisheries, which account for 80% of marine protein production. Global wild-caught fisheries production will depend entirely on the maintenance of fish populations. For overfished stocks, this means adopting or improving management practices that prevent overfishing and allow depleted stocks to recover.
• Reforms to policies governing mariculture
• Improvements in the feed used in mariculture. 75% of mariculture production requires certain feed inputs, such as fish meal and fish oil, derived from wild forage fisheries. However, alternatives such as plant-based or terrestrial animal proteins, seafood processing waste, microbial ingredients, insects, algae, or genetically modified plants are being developed to supply this industry.
• Changes in demand to stimulate production across all ocean-based food sectors

The ocean can therefore contribute much more to sustainable food production, if given the chance. However, redirecting subsidies toward strengthening institutional and technical capacities for research, management, and enforcement of fisheries laws will be a key step toward making progress in this direction.