Aquaculture Feed Sustainability and Fish Welfare

Aquaculture feed systems connect wild fish welfare to farmed fish welfare. Sustainable feed transitions benefit both wild and farmed animals.

Key Facts

Carnivorous farmed fish like salmon require high-protein diets historically met by fishmeal from wild-caught forage fish.
Approximately 25 million tonnes of wild fish are reduced to fishmeal and fish oil annually to feed farmed animals.
Forage fish (anchovies, sardines, herring) are themselves sentient animals — their welfare in industrial reduction fisheries is rarely considered.
Alternative protein sources including insect meal, algae, single-cell proteins, and plant proteins are increasingly used in aquafeed.
Feed quality directly affects farmed fish welfare — nutrient-deficient diets cause health problems, immune suppression, and abnormal behaviour.
Precision fermentation and cultivated marine ingredients are emerging as future alternatives to wild forage fish.

Welfare Considerations

Aquaculture feed creates a welfare chain that extends from wild forage fish to farmed fish. Wild forage fish caught for fishmeal die in large-scale industrial trawls — compressed, asphyxiated, or crushed — in numbers that dwarf any other single fishery. Replacing wild forage fish with insect meal, algae, or single-cell proteins reduces this welfare burden while also reducing ecological pressure on forage fish populations. For farmed fish, feed quality is a direct welfare determinant: appropriate protein, lipid, and micronutrient composition maintains immune function, growth, and behavioural normality. Sustainable feed transitions therefore serve multiple welfare goals simultaneously — reducing wild fish suffering and improving farmed fish health.

What You Can Do

Choose farmed fish products from producers using certified sustainable feed ingredients.
Support research and investment in alternative marine protein sources including insect meal and algae.
Advocate for feed certification schemes that include forage fish welfare as a sustainability criterion.
Reduce consumption of carnivorous farmed fish with high wild-fish feed requirements.