This article was published in International Aquafeed Magazine, May 2020 issue

By 2030, global aquaculture production is expected to grow to 109 million tons, forming the majority of the increase in growth of seafood production. This figure includes both fed and unfed aquaculture species, and this is an important distinction. It is of great interest that the rate of growth of fed aquaculture species has outpaced that for unfed aquaculture species between 2000 and 2016, covering the period up to the 2018 report.  

The FAO estimates approximately 30.5% of the total in 2016 was from unfed fish, with that proportion showing a continuing decreasing trend. These are species such as farmed bivalve molluscs (oysters, mussels), freshwater crayfish, some freshwater fish species such as grass carps, seaweeds and other aquatic plants. That suggests that there is at least a volume of 75.76 million tonnes of fed species to be produced globally in 2030, and very likely more if rates of change are maintained, growing from c.55 million tonnes of fed aquaculture production currently. That is an additional 20 million tonnes, approximately, of fed farmed fish to be produced in this decade.

There is a great diversity of aquaculture production systems around the world, and this production is not entirely reliant on feed, as some less intensive systems also have an endogenous feed contribution from the local environment. Even so, we are probably looking at growth of a similar volume in global feed production, i.e. c.20 million tonnes to maintain progress. Alltech provided an estimate for annual aquafeed production exceeding 40 million tonnes for the first time in 2018, in which case we are looking for something like an additional 50% growth on current aquafeed volumes.  Given current economic challenges, that is a positive note on which to finish, for ingredient and feed producers alike.

Neil Auchterlonie