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[Fisherbob]

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/24/a-milestone-looms-for-farm-raised-fish/

[Dave]

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/24/a-milestone-looms-for-farm-raised-fish/

Thanks for the link Fisherbob, but really, what credentials does the NY Times and their staff have? (Dave, most definitely joking and doing his best dnibbles impersonation )
I especially liked the reporter’s analogy of 12,000 years experience and learning curves associated with agriculture, compared to 60 years for salmon aquaculture.  Some of the related topics were interesting as well ... Dr. Rand`s take on salmon ranching or as he called it, salmon hatching, particularly.
 

[adriaticum]

Basically more and more people are eating garbage and are being herded into cities like sheep.

[absolon]

It's a case of more and more of the world's fisheries disappearing due to overfishing and environmental degradation and at the same time more and more mouths needing to be fed as the world population expands at an ever increasing rate. The required protein has to come from somewhere; there will be 10 billion of us by 2050 and we all need to eat.

[adriaticum]

It's a case of more and more of the world's fisheries disappearing due to overfishing and environmental degradation and at the same time more and more mouths needing to be fed as the world population expands at an ever increasing rate. The required protein has to come from somewhere; there will be 10 billion of us by 2050 and we all need to eat.

Yes.
I don't think the population is going to increase very much.
Mother nature and wars will take care of it before 2050.
Just guessing.

[absolon]

If you deny people sufficient food to subsist, the chances are that starvation and wars over food will limit population growth to some extent; otherwise, in spite of your guess, it is far more likely that population will increase and those extra people need to be fed some way. Aquaculture offers one way to contribute to that even if, as a complacent first worlder, you suggest that it is "eating garbage".

[alwaysfishn]

It's a case of more and more of the world's fisheries disappearing due to overfishing and environmental degradation and at the same time more and more mouths needing to be fed as the world population expands at an ever increasing rate. The required protein has to come from somewhere; there will be 10 billion of us by 2050 and we all need to eat.

If you deny people sufficient food to subsist, the chances are that starvation and wars over food will limit population growth to some extent; otherwise, in spite of your guess, it is far more likely that population will increase and those extra people need to be fed some way. Aquaculture offers one way to contribute to that even if, as a complacent first worlder, you suggest that it is "eating garbage".

If you're referring to feedlot salmon in your comments (that is the topic of this thread) then those comments are just nonsense.

Feedlot salmon is only consumed by the middle to upper class consumer, who buys it because they can afford it. One of the reasons why over fishing is a concern is because fish are being caught and converted to salmon feed.

Growing feedlot salmon is not necessary to feed the world's population! You are just repeating feedlot industry rhetoric.

[absolon]

I suspect that if you took the trouble to read the link initially posted, even you would realize that the subject of this thread is that for the first time the global production of cultured fish will this year exceed the global harvest of caught fish. And further, your knee jerk reaction aside, it is quite clear my comments are not about salmon farms. The reason for that would be that this thread is not about salmon farms.

[adriaticum]

If you deny people sufficient food to subsist, the chances are that starvation and wars over food will limit population growth to some extent; otherwise, in spite of your guess, it is far more likely that population will increase and those extra people need to be fed some way. Aquaculture offers one way to contribute to that even if, as a complacent first worlder, you suggest that it is "eating garbage".

Actually I read somewhere that population growth is slowing down and it might reverse the trend in the next decade.
The population projections for mid/end of the century are not realistic. Unfortunately I can't remember where I found this.
It's not only food that the wars will be faught over. Food is actually low on the totem pole.
Protein is only important to the industrialized world and it is expensive for a great number of people.
Africa will never be able to afford fish, unless they catch it. For them to afford farmed fish you have to raise their standard of living.
If you raise their standard of living they will stop having kids and population will drop.

Every part of the sea and all species are overharvested and food production is dropping.
Now it makes sense that now we need artificially raised food. But majority still can't afford it and it's cheaper to fish and harvest wild game.
There is a major poaching problem of land animals in Africa and at some point it's going to come to a head and people are potentially going to decimate all wildlife there.
It will be a battle between those who are hungry and those who want to protect wildlife.
It will be interesting to see how the whole thing develops.

[shuswapsteve]

It is more than just salmon farms.  That is only part of it.  Aquaculture includes the shellfish and algae  as well as freshwater and marine environments – and it is growing every year.  It is probably the fast growing food sector.  Another fact is that fish constitutes an important source of food and animal protein for many countries in the world.  It is not just the middle and upper class consumer (that is anti-fish farm rhetoric).  Here are some more facts:

-Globally, fish provides about 3.0 billion people with almost 20 percent of their intake of animal protein, and 4.3 billion people with about 15 percent of such protein.

-In fact, many populations, more those in developing countries than developed ones, depend on fish as part of their daily diet.

-Approximately 16.6 million (about 30 percent of all people employed in the fisheries sector) were engaged in fish farming, and they were even more concentrated in Asia (97 percent), followed by Latin America and the Caribbean (1.5 percent), and Africa (about 1 percent).

-In the last five years for which data are available, the number of people engaged in fish farming has increased at 5.5 percent per year compared with a mere 0.8 percent per year for those engaged in capture fisheries.

-Freshwater fishes dominated world aquaculture production in 2010 with diadromous fish coming in fourth.

-Production of freshwater fishes has always been dominated by carps (71.9 percent, 24.2 million tonnes, in 2010).

-Salmonid production, particularly Atlantic salmon, increased dramatically from 299 000 tonnes in 1990 to 1.9 million tonnes in 2010, at an average annual rate exceeding 9.5 percent.

-In 2010, diadromous fish production was dominated by Atlantic Salmon at approximately 1.4 million tonnes.

-In 2010, the white leg shrimp accounted for 71.8 percent of world production of all farmed marine shrimp species, of which 77.9 percent was produced in Asia (with the rest in its native home in America)


Critics of aquaculture can deny this all they want and drag in Malthusianism, but the facts are there if you look at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) website.  Are there challenges to aquaculture?  Absolutely, there are challenges with any agricultural sector.  There are challenges for capture fisheries also, but aquaculture is not going away.


http://www.fao.org/docrep/016/i2727e/i2727e.pdf

[troutbreath]

http://www.fao.org/ag/againfo/resources/documents/DW/Dw2.htm


They also raise carp doing this. Your getting a little carried away with the onus on critics of aquaculture. You should think of it as critics of poorly run fish farms to save a buck and not the habitat.

[adriaticum]

It is more than just salmon farms.  That is only part of it.  Aquaculture includes the shellfish and algae  as well as freshwater and marine environments – and it is growing every year.  It is probably the fast growing food sector.  Another fact is that fish constitutes an important source of food and animal protein for many countries in the world.  It is not just the middle and upper class consumer (that is anti-fish farm rhetoric).  Here are some more facts:

-Globally, fish provides about 3.0 billion people with almost 20 percent of their intake of animal protein, and 4.3 billion people with about 15 percent of such protein.

-In fact, many populations, more those in developing countries than developed ones, depend on fish as part of their daily diet.

-Approximately 16.6 million (about 30 percent of all people employed in the fisheries sector) were engaged in fish farming, and they were even more concentrated in Asia (97 percent), followed by Latin America and the Caribbean (1.5 percent), and Africa (about 1 percent).

-In the last five years for which data are available, the number of people engaged in fish farming has increased at 5.5 percent per year compared with a mere 0.8 percent per year for those engaged in capture fisheries.

-Freshwater fishes dominated world aquaculture production in 2010 with diadromous fish coming in fourth.

-Production of freshwater fishes has always been dominated by carps (71.9 percent, 24.2 million tonnes, in 2010).

-Salmonid production, particularly Atlantic salmon, increased dramatically from 299 000 tonnes in 1990 to 1.9 million tonnes in 2010, at an average annual rate exceeding 9.5 percent.

-In 2010, diadromous fish production was dominated by Atlantic Salmon at approximately 1.4 million tonnes.

-In 2010, the white leg shrimp accounted for 71.8 percent of world production of all farmed marine shrimp species, of which 77.9 percent was produced in Asia (with the rest in its native home in America)


Critics of aquaculture can deny this all they want and drag in Malthusianism, but the facts are there if you look at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) website.  Are there challenges to aquaculture?  Absolutely, there are challenges with any agricultural sector.  There are challenges for capture fisheries also, but aquaculture is not going away.


http://www.fao.org/docrep/016/i2727e/i2727e.pdf

Yes shuswapsteve I think you are getting a little carried away.
I have nothing against aquaculture, farming etc.
I just have something against those companies who put fish farms where they interfere with the wild species.
Wouldn't you have a problem if somebody put a hog farm in your local park.

[shuswapsteve]

Yes shuswapsteve I think you are getting a little carried away.
I have nothing against aquaculture, farming etc.
I just have something against those companies who put fish farms where they interfere with the wild species.
Wouldn't you have a problem if somebody put a hog farm in your local park.

Not getting carried away at all.  It is all relevant to what we have been discussing.  The title of the news article is “Milestone Looms for Farm-Raised Fish”.  As absolon said, the subject of this thread is that for the first time the global production of cultured fish will this year exceed the global harvest of caught fish.  Some of you automatically think that some of us are talking about farmed salmon.  Well, part of it does involve Atlantic Salmon raised in ocean net-pens, but cultured fish refers to fish raised in freshwater as well as saltwater.  It applies to carp, catfish, milkfish, rainbow trout, perch, bass, tilapia – not just Atlantic Salmon.  When you look at the larger picture aquaculture also applies to algae as well as shrimp.  This is what I was trying to convey.

A little further down in the article it discusses that aquaculture is not without its problems…..and if you would have read just a part of the FAO report you would have found out that other types of aquaculture (marine and freshwater) experience disease problems.  Disease outbreaks have affected not only farmed salmon in Chile, but also oysters in Europe and shrimp in several other countries in Africa, Asia and South America – leading to partial or complete loss of production.  Land based agriculture is also not free from disease problems.  Despite this, aquaculture will keep growing every year, surpassing capture fisheries.  Fish farming is growing at a faster rate than capture fisheries.  This shift is not going away, so we need to start embracing it and come up with solutions for problems.  This includes science-based solutions as recommended in Cohen’s Final Report – not solutions based on unsubstantiated rhetoric with many of you gentlemen still seem to hold onto.  For instance, critics that exploit recent problems with Salmonella and Listeria by linking it to net-pen aquaculture are not concerned with science-based solutions.  It is merely meant to scare people and create more ignorance.  The article brings up a good point at the end that we have had much more experience with learning agriculture as compared to only a shorter period of time for large-scale aquaculture.  Lastly, some of the things you gentlemen have stated are either incorrect or exaggerated, so that is why I highlighted some facts from the FAO report.

Wouldn't you have a problem if somebody put a hog farm in your local park.

And you are saying that I am getting a little carried away?  LOL

[alwaysfishn]

Wouldn't you have a problem if somebody put a hog farm in your local park.

Maybe the feedlot boys will answer your question if we rephrase it for them......

What's the difference between putting a hog farm in the middle of a park (like Stanley park) versus putting a salmon feedlot in a pristine ocean?

[blaydRnr]

Maybe the feedlot boys will answer your question if we rephrase it for them......

What's the difference between putting a hog farm in the middle of a park (like Stanley park) versus putting a salmon feedlot in a pristine ocean?

because it will compete with the petting zoo.