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Sourcing practices matter more than ingredients for the environmental footprint of salmon aquaculture feeds
Citation
Cottrell, RS and Halpern, BS and Hamilton, HA and Penrose, B and Carter, CG and Adams, LR and Johne, AS and Blanchard, JL, Sourcing practices matter more than ingredients for the environmental footprint of salmon aquaculture feeds, World Aquaculture Society, 29 November-02 December 2022, Singapore (2022) [Conference Extract]
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Official URL: https://www.was.org/Meeting/pdf/WA2022BluePages.pd...
Abstract
Reduced dependence on wild-caught fish for aquaculture feeds has been a central tenet of
sustainable aquaculture growth, particularly for carnivorous species such as salmon. Salmon
aquaculture feeds are now largely dominated by crop-based ingredients in response to growing
sustainability concerns surrounding the use of fishmeal and oil. Yet quantitative analyses of the
environmental footprint of marine- or plant-dominant feeds and the variability of this footprint
are lacking. Using global production, diet, and feed efficiency data, we present geospatial
analyses of the cumulative environmental footprint (including greenhouse gas emissions, habitat
disturbance, water extraction and nutrient pollution) generated from feeding the global farmed
salmon industry either marine-dominant or plant-dominant feeds. We show that, relative to
marine-dominant feeds, plant-dominant feeds reduce natural habitat disturbance, but their total
environmental footprint tends to be similar due to trade-offs from water extraction and nutrient
pollution (Figure 1). Importantly, where ingredients are sourced drives considerable variation in
the cumulative environmental footprint within feeds such that the upper 97.6% of cumulative
pressures scores for marine-dominant feeds overlap with the lower 97% of plant-dominant feeds.
Policy and discourse surrounding the environmental sustainability of aquaculture feeds needs to
better acknowledge the role that responsible sourcing can play for the sustainability of feed
ingredients and the farming operations that rely on them.
Item Details
| Item Type: | Conference Extract |
|---|---|
| Keywords: | salmon, aquaculture, feeds, raw materials |
| Research Division: | Environmental Sciences |
| Research Group: | Ecological applications |
| Research Field: | Ecological applications not elsewhere classified |
| Objective Division: | Animal Production and Animal Primary Products |
| Objective Group: | Environmentally sustainable animal production |
| Objective Field: | Environmentally sustainable animal production not elsewhere classified |
| UTAS Author: | Cottrell, RS (Dr Richard Cottrell) |
| UTAS Author: | Penrose, B (Dr Beth Penrose) |
| UTAS Author: | Carter, CG (Professor Chris Carter) |
| UTAS Author: | Adams, LR (Dr Louise Adams) |
| UTAS Author: | Johne, AS (Mrs Alexandra Johne) |
| UTAS Author: | Blanchard, JL (Professor Julia Blanchard) |
| ID Code: | 155471 |
| Year Published: | 2022 |
| Deposited By: | Ecology and Biodiversity |
| Deposited On: | 2023-02-21 |
| Last Modified: | 2023-02-22 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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