2. SELECTED DEVELOPMENTS AND TRENDS

There has been a growing trend within most developing countries and many developed countries (e.g. Japan) toward the increased use of artificially compounded feeds (aquafeeds) for farmed finfish and crustaceans. This trend has been particularly apparent within developing countries with the progressive intensification of farming systems, and in particular within the main LIFDC¹ finfish- and crustacean-producing countries (i.e. China, India, Indonesia and the Philippines) for the production of both lower-value staple food fish species (mainly freshwater finfish such as carp, tilapia and catfish) and higher-value cash crop species for luxury or niche markets (mainly marine and diadromous species such as shrimp, salmon, trout, yellowtail, seabass, seabream and grouper). In fact, the production of aquafeeds has been widely recognized as one of the fastest expanding agricultural industries in the world, with annual growth rates in excess of 30% per year (Rabobank Nederland, 1995; Tacon, 1996).

Figure 2.1.1
Although no official statistics are currently collected by FAO concerning compound animal feed production within its Member States (including the production of farm-made and commercially compounded aquafeeds), it has been estimated by Gill (1996) that the total world production of manufactured compound animal feeds was about 560 million mt in 1995 (valued at over US$55 thousand million), of which aquatic feeds constituted 3% or 16.8 million mt (Figure 2.1.1). Gill (1997) estimated global aquafeed production to be 18.2 million mt in 1996, although no information was provided as to the quantities of aquafeeds produced for the different major cultivated species within individual countries or regions.

Figure 2.1.2

Projections for aquafeed production for the year 2000 have been made by several authors and range from 4.5 million mt (a 35% increase from 1992; New and Csavas, 1995), 4.6 million mt (a 56% increase from 1990; Chamberlain, 1993) to 7.5 million mt (assumes a modest annual growth of 10% per year or a 78% increase from 1994; Tacon, 1996).

In general, the major global challenges currently facing aquafeed development are as follows:

• The need for aquaculture to be seen as a net contributor to total world fisheries landings and global food supply rather than a net consumer of potential food-grade fishery resources

In contrast to the majority of freshwater farming systems, almost all production systems for brackishwater or marine finfish and crustaceans (i.e. diadromous and marine species) are dependent upon capture fisheries for sourcing their inputs through: a) the capture of wild broodstock for spawning (most penaeid shrimp and marine finfish farming); b) the collection of wild `seed’ for subsequent on-growing to market size, such as milkfish, yellowtail, mullet, eels, groupers, etc., and most types of extensive penaeid shrimp farming; and c) the use of whole or processed fishery products as feed inputs (Tacon and Barg, in press). At present, nearly all farming operations for carnivorous diadromous finfish, marine finfish and crustaceans, which are based upon the use of aquafeeds, are net fishery resource `reducers’ rather than `producers’. The quantity of inputs of dietary fishery resources in the form of fishmeal, fish oil, crustacean by-product meals, `trash fish’, etc., exceeds outputs in terms of farmed fishery products by a factor of 2 to 3.

Production of the 3 million mt of farmed marine/diadromous finfish/crustacean species (wet basis) in 1995 would have required over 1.5 million mt of fishmeal and fish oil (dry basis) or the equivalent of over 5 million mt of pelagic fish (wet basis; assumes a pelagics to fishmeal conversion factor of 5:1). This is not surprising because fishmeal and fish oil usually constitute 50-75% by weight of compound aquafeeds for most commercially farmed carnivorous finfish species and 25-50% by weight (together with shrimp meals and squid meal) of compound aquafeeds for marine shrimp. This conversion of pelagic biomass to fishmeal used for aquafeeds results in the `double counting’ of fish production, once as capture fishery landings and again as aquaculture production.

• The need for finfish and crustacean farming systems to develop feeding strategies based wherever possible upon the use of non-food grade locally available feed resources

Figure 2.1.3
Despite the superior nutritional and economic merits of feeding regimes based upon the use of fishery resources as feed inputs for carnivorous fish and marine shrimp, the future availability and cost of these feed ingredients are both uncertain and unstable. Despite optimistic projections made by the fishmeal and fish oil manufacturing industry concerning the availability and use of these fishery products for animal feeds (including aquafeeds) over the next decade (Tables 2.1.1 - 2.1.3, Figure 2.1.3; Pike, 1997), there are increasing doubts regarding the long-term sustainability of farming systems based entirely upon these finite and valuable fishery resources, in particular concerning the efficiency and ethics of feeding potentially food-grade fishery resources back to animals (including fish) rather than feeding them directly to humans (Best, 1996a; Hansen, 1996; Pimentel et al., 1996; Rees, 1997).

In the short term, efforts could be focused on the potential use of non-food grade fishery by-products (i.e. fishery by-catch and discards, and fishmeals produced from fish processing plants and industrial non-food fishes [Alverson et al., 1994; New, 1996]). Clearly, however, the long-term efforts must be placed on the use of by-products from the much larger and faster-growing terrestrial agricultural production sector, including: 1) terrestrial animal by-product meals resulting from the processing (i.e. rendering) of non-food grade livestock by-products; 2) plant oilseed and grain legume meals; 3) cereal by-product meals; and 4) miscellaneous protein sources such as single-cell proteins, leaf protein concentrates, invertebrate meals, etc. However, the eventual success of these potential feed resources as fishmeal replacement in aquafeeds will in turn depend upon the further development and use of improved techniques in feed processing/manufacture (Riaz, 1997; Watanabe and Kiron, 1997) and feed formulation, including the increased use of specific feed additives such as feeding stimulants, free amino acids, feed enzymes, probiotics and immune-enhancers (Devresse et al., 1997; Feord, 1997; Hardy and Dong, 1997).

Moreover, in developing countries, efforts should be made whenever possible to upgrade, through the use of improved processing methods, and increase the use of locally available feed ingredient sources so as to reduce the current dependence of most developing countries upon imported sources (Rabobank Nederland, 1995; Best, 1996b). For example, in a recent survey of the aquaculture feed manufacturing sector in the Philippines, it was estimated that approximately 45-75% of the ingredients used in commercial aquaculture feeds for finfish (mainly tilapia and milkfish) and 85-95% of those for marine shrimp were imported, as compared with only 20-30% for livestock and poultry feeds (Cruz, 1997). However, in marked contrast to commercially produced aquafeeds, the local production of farm-made aquafeeds by small-scale farmers plays an important role in that it does facilitate the use of locally available feed ingredient sources and agricultural by-products that would otherwise not be used (New et al., 1995).

Clearly, if the finfish and crustacean aquaculture sector is to sustain its rapid growth rate (11.7% per year since 1984) into the next millennium, the aquafeed manufacturing sector will have to compete successfully with other users, including humans and the much larger animal livestock production sector (see Figure 2.1.1) for available feed resources. Therefore, in the coming decade, the aquaculture sector will have to base its feeding regimes upon the use of feed ingredient sources whose global production and availability can keep pace with the increasing needs of a growing and hungry world. For example, in terms of global protein supply, soybean meal production has been growing more than four times faster than has fishmeal production: an average annual growth rate between 1984 and 1995 of 4.6% from 56.7 to 93.40 million mt, compared with 1.1% from 6.11 million mt to 6.87 million mt for fishmeal production (Figure 2.1.4). In addition, it is generally expected that strong demand from Asia, and in particular from China, for available feed resources will have a considerable impact on world commodity markets and feed prices (Brown, 1995; Rabobank Nederland, 1995; Gill, 1997). China is the world’s largest importer of fishmeal (ca. 0.88 million mt in 1996; Buckley, 1997) and ís the world's second largest compound animal feed manufacturer (ca. 42-48 million mt in 1995). Its feed production is expected to expand to more than 100 million mt by 2005 (Anon., 1997a, 1997b) and 120-150 million mt by 2010 (Zhang Yu, 1996). The official government estimate for aquafeed production in China in 1994 was 1.85 million mt (5% of total compound feed production; Zhang Yu, 1996); unconfirmed estimates for aquafeed production in China in 1996 exceed 5 million mt.

• The need for development of improved feed formulation and on-farm feed and water management strategies tailored to the needs of the intended farming system or farm production unit, in order to minimize feed wastage and its potential negative effect on the aquatic environment, and to maximize nutrient retention and the health status of cultured organisms

As farming systems intensify, either in terms of increased stocking density and consequent nutrient input or in terms of number of farms per unit area, the need for development of environmentally cleaner or 'greener' feeding strategies becomes greater. The net result of excess nutrient loss is an economic loss to the farmer, and a potentially deteriorating aquatic environment within and possibly outside the farm, with consequent increased stress to the cultured animals and increased susceptibility to disease. Thus, feeding regimes should be designed to minimize nutrient loss and faecal output, and to maximize nutrient retention and the health status of the cultured species. Such actions would in turn help to improve the social acceptance and confidence of the sector in terms of aquatic resource use and environmental sustainability (Tacon et al., 1995).

Figure 2.1.4
In this respect, feed manufacturers have the very important responsibility of ensuring that the feed they provide to farmers is both nutritionally correct for the intended farming production system, and is managed correctly by the farmer. Feed manufacturers can contribute to reducing the environmental impact of aquaculture by: 1) providing information to promote efficient husbandry in order to reduce wastage through uneaten food; 2) optimizing nutrient retention by improving digestibility of nutrients and dietary nutrient balance; 3) producing palatable feeds; 4) adopting feed-processing technology that will reduce leaching, dust and pellet disintegration; and 5) minimizing fish mortality through the development of health-promoting diets (Talbot and Hole, 1994).

At present, most commercially available aquafeeds for extensive and semi-intensive pond farming systems are over-formulated as nutritionally complete diets, irrespective of the intended fish or crustacean stocking density and consequent natural food availability. Clearly, this situation will have to be rectified if farmers are to minimize feed wastage and the deposition of uneaten feed and potentially toxic pond sediments, thus reducing production costs and maximizing returns. The important message here is for feed manufacturers and on-farm feed compounders to tailor the feed to the intended farming system and not just to the theoretical requirements of a fish or shrimp with no access to natural food (Chamberlain and Hopkins, 1994; Anderson and De Silva, 1997; Chamberlain, in press; Tacon and Basucro, 1997).

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