Responsible Aquaculture and Trophic Level Implications to Global Fish Supply

By A. Tacon, M. Metian, G. Turchini, S. S. De Silva. 2009

172 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Hunger and malnutrition remain among the most devastating problems facing the world's poor and needy, and continue to dominate the health and well-being of the world's poorest nations. Moreover, there are growing doubts as to the long-term sustainability of many existing food production systems, including capture fisheries and aquaculture, to meet the future increasing global demands. Of the different agricultural food production systems, aquaculture (the farming of aquatic animals and plants) is widely viewed as an important weapon in the global fight against malnutrition and poverty, particularly within developing countries where over 93% of global production is currently produced, providing in most instances an affordable and a much needed source of high quality animal protein, lipids, and other essential nutrients. The current article compares for the first time the development and growth of the aquaculture sector and capture fisheries by analyzing production by mean trophic level. Whereas marine capture fisheries have been feeding the world on high trophic level carnivorous fish species since mankind has been fishing the oceans, aquaculture production within developing countries has focused, by and large, on the production of lower trophic level species. However, like capture fisheries, aquaculture focus within economically developed countries has been essentially on the culture of high value-, high trophic level-carnivorous species. The long term sustainability of these production systems is questionable unless the industry can reduce its dependence upon capture fisheries for sourcing raw materials for feed formulation and seed inputs. In line with above, the article calls for the urgent need for all countries to adopt and adhere to the principles and guidelines for responsible aquaculture of the FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries.

Subfields: Aquatic Science, Global and Planetary Change

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e02e07b83b04387d7794e7a884f54ce0210b7f4e

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Aquatic Science

1. Ó. Monroig
2. Y. Olsen
3. S. S. Silva
4. D. Tocher
5. P. Edwards
6. J. Bell
7. G. Turchini

In Global and Planetary Change

1. D. Aldridge
2. S. S. Silva
3. D. Tocher
4. Ó. Monroig
5. Y. Olsen

Citations in the corpus

• Aquaculture: a newly emergent food production sector—and perspectives of its impacts on biodiversity and conservation (2012, background): “…prominent example is the use of fish meal and fish oil in aquaculture—its conceived long term sustainability—and related biodiversity issues (Naylor et al. 1998, 2000; Tacon and Metian 2008; Hasan and Halwart 2009; Jenkins et al. 2009; Tsilkiras et al. 2010; Tacon et al. 2010, 2012, among others).”
• Searching for Solutions in Aquaculture: Charting a Sustainable Course (2012, unknown): “Capture fisheries, which are generally of higher TL, make up the majority seafood consumed in developed countries , 148).”
• Sustainable Intensification of Aquaculture through Nutrient Recycling and Circular Economies: More Fish, Less Waste, Blue Growth (2021, background): “…feed, significant effort and progress have also been made to suggest and test alternatives to fish meal and fish oil (Glencross et al. 2007; Tacon et al. 2009; Turchini et al. 2009; Hardy 2010; Olsen 2011; Klinger and Naylor 2012; Oliva-Teles 2012; Soller et al. 2017; Gasco et al. 2018; S…”
• Resources for fish feed in future mariculture (2011, background): “The fact that krill, and perhaps also red feed, are important for fisheries and as food for birds and mammals, means that the issue has management and political dimensions that must be thoroughly considered (Tiller 2010).”
• Elongation of long-chain fatty acids in rabbitfish Siganus canaliculatus: Cloning, functional characterisation and tissue distribution of Elovl5- and Elovl4-like elongases (2012, background): “upon which the general concept above was forged and, trophically, is more similar to herbivorous freshwater species (Woodland, 1990; Tacon et al., 2010).”