When it comes to how we feed ourselves, where should our priorities be? Minimizing my negative environmental impact has been a guiding interest in my life for the past two years; I spent a year fully vegan when I left for college. After I began studying the environment and especially agriculture, I took notice of the inefficiencies of some of my eating habits, especially of how out-of-season my plant-based diet required me to eat. I probably wasn’t doing much better than I had as an omnivore.
So, I put fish and eggs back into my diet. This time, though, I wanted to do it right: only eggs from the farmer’s market and only fish that was marketed as ‘sustainable.’ This means that I was eating a lot of wild-caught Alaskan salmon from the freezer section.
Was this naive? Salmon are in trouble. Was I really lessening my impact, or just redirecting it?
It seems like fish farms have a poor reputation among environmentalists, and with good reason: outdoor fish farms are big polluters, can hurt biodiversity, and can spread disease to wild populations.*
But what about indoor fish farms? If large-scale aquaculture happens on land, pollution from waste is easier to contain. Fish can’t escape to harm the biodiversity of the surrounding area. Diseases won’t leave the factory floor. If conditions inside are completely clean and controlled, then fish typically won’t need antibiotics, hormones, or other chemicals to keep them healthy.†
It could still be better, though. The feed that farmed fish are given is typically made of corn, soy, and/or fishmeal. When we visited a small, indoor fish farm last week, the feed conversion ratio of feed to fish produced was almost down to 1:1. Compare this to chicken, at about 2:1, or beef, at about 6:1. 1:1 is good, but this is a loop that might be closed by using the fish waste to raise insects for feed, either directly or by using it as plant fertilizer.
Moving aquaculture indoors seems to be a step in the right direction, but more steps are yet to come. I also think I’m due for more research on the fish that I eat, so that I can prioritize indoor aquaculture.
Kellen Mahoney
* The Problems with Fish Farming, Wellness Mama
† The Future Of Clean, Green Fish Farming Could Be Indoor Fish Factories, NPR