30 JUNE 2018 • WORLD AQUACULTURE • WWW.WAS.ORG • Veterinary medicine to foster good animal health with disease prevention and treatments to accommodate high-density culture and rapid growth. • Advanced nutrition with feed formulations using low-cost ingredients while supporting fast growth and optimum health. Aquaculture products are now high-cost animal proteins just as broilers were 65 years ago. Aquaculture needs to produce animal protein at a low cost. The following four factors will bring this change. They are almost identical to the factors that brought the poultry revolution. • Continued development in genetics with selective breeding for faster growth, disease resistance, and utilization of a greater proportion of low-cost plant protein from grains in the diets of aquatic animals. • Improved husbandry in IMTA systems with higher feed protein utilization to bring lower costs along while discharging less polluting waste. • Advancements in veterinary medicine to further reduce mortalities and foster higher-density culture. • Advanced nutrition employing lower-cost feed ingredients to support fast growth along with alternative feed commodities to replace costly fishmeal. Constraints to be Removed There are three major reasons why aquaculture development in the U.S. and some other developed counties has been constrained: 1) regulatory barriers-to-entry at various levels of government, 2) an adverse public image that discourages consumers, regulators and investors, and 3) a lack of investment capital. There are various solutions to overcome these constraints to aquaculture development, including: • Developing a compelling social need for aquaculture in the US and the world with a strong social license to operate. This has already happened in Mississippi (USA), New Brunswick (Canada) and France where the production of catfish, salmon and oysters has flourished while in neighboring areas it has not. • Developing support for aquaculture at all levels of government as is the case in Maine, Mississippi and Hawaii. These are by far the three highest production aquaculture states in the US. Their good examples show us the way forward. • Informing the public that aquaculture is the most environmentally sustainable from of wholesome and nutritious animal protein production and that there is a compelling need for IMTA. • Altering the flow of domestic savings in the US to stimulate greater investments in aquaculture and other forms of innovation. Our tax-favored system of retirement savings has greatly inhibited flows of capital into innovative enterprises such as those for farming fish and shellfish. The Future of Food Integrated multi-trophic aquaculture is the future of food. It is the best, and perhaps sole, means to feed animal protein for our rapidly growing global populations in an economically and environmentally sustainable manner. The volume of plant protein that can be grown in terrestrial agriculture is limited. Therefore the supply of feed for aquaculture production is limited. As I have illustrated, however, the feed supply issue is potentially solvable through IMTA. The need for capital investment may not be solvable. My major concern is how aquaculture entrepreneurs can acquire sufficient capital to stimulate growth to a scale sufficient to avoid a global food disaster. Capital sources for small innovative aquaculture enterprises barely exist. In the present financial structure of the US, well established corporations have access to sophisticated capital markets but small innovative companies do not. Big corporations rarely pioneer disruptive business activities like IMTA. That is the role of visionary and able entrepreneurs. My book explains the reasons why capital is unavailable to innovative aquaculture ventures. The present paucity of capital in the wealthiest nation in the world is a major failure of our economic system. If left unresolved, it will continue to be a barrier to the development of aquaculture and therefor to the future of food. The fate of IMTA lies in the hands of small entrepreneurial enterprises that must lead the way in building a large-scale industry. The capital barrier must be eliminated if IMTA is to achieve its potential. The capital shortage problem is exacerbated by the erroneous negative public image of aquaculture as environmentally unsustainable. That misperception negatively impacts investors and must be corrected. IMTA is positioned to fulfill compelling global needs for animal protein because it 1) produces considerably more animal protein per unit input of plant protein, 2) has the potential to lower production costs for fish and shellfish to levels competitive with other animal proteins, and 3) preserves our planet. In my view, most other forms of aquaculture will have difficulty competing economically and environmentally in the future with IMTA. It brings a powerful change to animal protein production and will bring affordable and nutritious food to the world’s rapidly growing population at costs comparable to other animal proteins. If not IMTA, then what form of animal protein production will do this? Consider the alternative. It is the future of food. The need for large scale IMTA is compelling. With IMTA, people in an otherwise hungry world will enjoy more healthy and peaceful lives. If consumer prices of seafood are to approach other forms of animal protein such as beef, pork and poultry, total growing, processing and distribution costs for aquaculture products must be reduced. We cannot expect widespread consumption of aquaculture products at current consumer price levels that are uncompetitive with other animal protein sources. In most forms of fish production, feed accounts for over half the cost of production. If we can reduce overall feed costs in aquaculture production systems, we can reduce total costs of fish protein to consumers.
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