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Sustainable Farmed Seafood

Atlantic salmon aquaculture (Salmo salar), east coast of Canada

Sustainable Aquaculture

Fish and shellfish can be a healthy source of protein and essential oils in your diet and the Food Standards Agency recommends eating at least 2 portions of fish per week (FSA). However, the world’s oceans can not produce all the seafood we require so half  the fish and shellfish we eat is currently produced on farms.

Fish farming is not only essential to provide the increasing quantities of healthy seafood it also has some positive attributes that make it important in the overall supply of sustainable food for the future. Some forms of fish farming and species are very efficient at using resources particularly feed and have a low carbon and freshwater footprint similar to poultry.

In the UK we are mainly working on issues around sustainable feeds and ensuring that fish used in feeds come from sustainable stocks certified by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) and that alternative feed ingredients are developed and used in the future.

As with all farming there are various environmental impacts associated with fish farming. WWF is addressing the most important social and environmental impacts of aquaculture through a process called the Aquaculture Dialogues.

The Aquaculture Dialogues are multi-stakeholder roundtables that will produce best practice operating standards for the most important farmed species around the world. The completed standards will be managed by a body called the Aquaculture Stewardship Council and will be the farmed fish equivalent to the Marine Stewardship Council that is presently responsible for the certification of wild fish stocks.

A number of standards have been completed already including those for tilapia as shown in the short film clip below.

Find out more about the aquadialogues and the Aquaculture Stewardship Council.

Stakeholder Case Study 3

WWF Freshwater Trout Aquaculture Dialogue, Scotland

Focusing on a stakeholder initiative with WWF, David Bassett from the British Trout Association in Scotland highlights the importance of representing British trout farmers in a variety of projects. This dialogue allows their work to be understood and accurately represented in national and international forums. www.projectpisces.eu