The Future of Aquatic Protein: Implications for Protein Sources in Aquaculture Diets

Abstract

Approximately 70% of the aquatic-based production of animals is fed aquaculture, whereby animals are provided with high-protein aquafeeds. Currently, aquafeeds are reliant on fish meal and fish oil sourced from wild-captured forage fish. However, increasing use of forage fish is unsustainable and, because an additional 37.4 million tons of aquafeeds will be required by 2025, alternative protein sources are needed. Beyond plantbased ingredients, fishery and aquaculture byproducts and insect meals have the greatest potential to supply the protein required by aquafeeds over the next 10-20 years. Food waste also has potential through the biotransformation and/or bioconversion of raw waste materials, whereas microbial and macroalgal biomass have limitations regarding their scalability and protein content, respectively. In this review, we describe the considerable scope for improved efficiency in fed aquaculture and discuss the development and optimization of alternative protein sources for aquafeeds to ensure a socially and environmentally sustainable future for the aquaculture industry.

Protein Recovery from Underutilised Marine Bioresources for Product Development with Nutraceutical and Pharmaceutical Bioactivities

“…Moreover, typically utilisation of SPBs for production of protein-based products and fishmeal are competitive and mutually exclusive approaches. Currently 30% of SPBs are used for production of fishmeal and oils, but this figure is set to increase due to higher profitability, as a result of increasing in selling price and global demand of fish meal and fish oils [11,384].…”

Protein hunger of the feed sector: the alternatives offered by the plant world

“…In addition, even if extensive research into algae cultivation in order to reduce the cultivation cost and increase the productivity of microalgae has increased dramatically over the last few decades (Beal et al 2015), the current price of microalgae is between US$10 and US$30 per kg, much higher than soybean meal (0.30 $per kg), hence global production is limited to highvalue niches as human supplement and nutraceutical. The qualitative assessments of the alternative protein sources based on a combination of the current-day realities and the future potential (10-20 years) of each protein source consider that the main obstacle that will need to be overcome before development, in the case of microbial biomasses, is the economics feasibility (Hua et al 2019), that is the main objective for the next future.…”

“…Currently, aquafeeds represent a limited percentage (4%) of the global feed production, but this sector will expand considerably by 2050 being the second only to the poultry one (Hua et al 2019). The number of commercial aquafeeds amounted to 49.7 million tons in 2015 and it is estimated to increase to 87.1 million tons in 2025 (Hua et al 2019). However, this forecasting is considered an underestimate not including the farm-made feeds (Tacon and Metian 2015).…”

Reframing Financing and Investment for a Sustainable Ocean Economy

“…At the same time, ecosystems provide essential inputs to many ocean industries. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) conservatively estimates the total "asset" base of the ocean to be at least USD 24 trillion, but cautions that the actual value is likely much higher, in large part due to ecosystem services that are difficult to quantify (Hoegh-Guldberg, 2015 [12]). Ecosystem services provided by the ocean include provisioning (such as fisheries and aquaculture; fuel from mangroves), regulating (e.g.…”