Aquaculture Has a Problem. Do You Have an Answer?

<div class="ag87-crtemvc-hsbk"><div class="css-vsf5of"><p class="carina-rte-public-DraftStyleDefault-block"><span style="color: rgb(29,28,29);">Aquaculture, or fish farming, represents over half of the world’s seafood, and is growing. However, aquaculture relies on small, wild-caught fish like anchovy and menhaden to supply two critical components of feed: fishmeal and fish oil. With 90% of fisheries fully exploited or overfished, aquaculture faces supply chain bottlenecks on these critical inputs that portend a drastic reduction in seafood. Not only are farmed fish threatened, but also important commercial fisheries such as salmon, cod and tuna that rely on these little fish for sustenance. The consequences are not only a drastic reduction in seafood but also an ecological collapse in seabirds and marine mammals. Sustainable replacements need to be found before wild-caught resources become scarce.</span></p><p class="carina-rte-public-DraftStyleDefault-block"><span style="color: rgb(29,28,29);">Emerging solutions such as algae, insects, single-celled proteins, plant-based and cell-cultured products offer substitutes for fishmeal and fish oil, but we will need all hands on deck to offer new sources of nutrition to solve this aquaculture feed problem and to feed our rapidly growing population. This session brings together aquaculture industry professionals to challenge the synbio sector to reverse engineer solutions for nutrition that are needed not only for aquaculture and animal agriculture, but also ultimately for human nutrition.</span></p></div></div>