Aquaculture
Overview & Benefits
Aquaculture Potential
Both salmon and seaweed play a role in the delivery of the low carbon economy. Salmon is a high protein food with only 7.2kg of CO2 per kg of meat compared to beef which has 39.0kg[1] (Mowi Salmon Farming Handbook 2022) and seaweed can replace fossil fuel-based products in a number of areas. Given this aquaculture, is set to grow considerably in the coming decades.
Marine aquaculture accounted for only 37.5% of all farmed food fish production in 2018. The United Nations reports that 31.4% of the world’s wild fish stocks are being over fished and another 58.1% have already been fully fished (FAO, 2016).
Aquaculture can meet the need for more sustainably sourced fisheries and the demands of a growing and more affluent world population. There has already been a 527% rise in global aquaculture production from 1990 to 2018 (FAO) and the UN report referenced above predicts the supply of farmed fish will overtake that of wild fish in the 2020s.