Aquaculture 2022

February 28 - March 4, 2022

San Diego, California

SUSTAINABLE AND ALTERNATIVE AQUAFEED FROM A MIX OF ALGAL STRAINS: PARTIAL OR FULL REPLACEMENT OF FISH OIL AND FISH MEAL

Amha Belay*, William Barclay, David Hazlebeck, Wilson Mendoza, B. Greg Mitchell

Algae4All, LLC, 79200 Latigo Circle, La Quinta, CA 92253. abelay@algae4all.com

 



 It is estimated that the world population would increase to about ten billion by the year 2050. According to WRR (2019), it would require 56 % more food and 593 Mha of additional land  (2010 baseline) to feed this increasing population. The aquaculture sector is expected to continue to provide animal protein and essential fatty acids. Yet aquaculture depends heavily on fish oil and fish meal that are not sustainable in view of the dwindling total catch of fish from the oceans. It is with this as a backdrop that a subgroup of the Food and Feed for the 21 Century initiative, aimed to study the possibility of using a mix of algal strains to formulate a feed that will totally or partially replace fish oil and fish meal. Unlike other studies that explore single algae strains in limited feed trials, primarily with small species or juvenile fish (Gong et al. 2020, Gong et al. 2019, Peterson and Burr, 2019, Kiron et al. 2016, Sorensen et al. 2016, Sprague et al. 2015, Moroney et al. 2014), we have taken the approach to use the biochemical details of diverse algae strains that are already at modest to large commercial production scale. This includes microalgae produced with heterotrophic fermentation and both micro and macro algae that are autotrophic.  The biochemical profiles of amino acids, oils, and bulk calories are introduced to the software Mixit to replace fish meal, fish oil and terrestrial sourced biomass. Preliminary studies are underway to evaluate a formulated feed for salmonid species that reduces both fish ingredients and terrestrial agriculture biomass . In a companion presentation, Beal et al. (2022) show that algae can have a far superior land, water and greenhouse gas impact compared to terrestrial crops . This presentation will highlight some of the findings and discuss future prospects to improve the sustainability of aquafeeds by supplementing or replacing fish meal and fish oil and terrestrial crop components in feed formulations.