Global Hot-Spots Could Produce 100 Times More Global Demand

Aerial View of Fish Farm in Croatia 

The paper published by Nature "Mapping the Global Potential for Marine Aquaculture" is causing a commotion in the aquaculture sector, Scientific media and University press. The report assures that they have identified Global Hot-Spots which could produce 15 billion tonnes of seafood per year -more than 100 times over of what the entire World Population consumes in sea-food today.

It is the first time a group of scientists develop a Global map identifying locations which have significant potential for the development of ocean food production. Press jumped all over the news....

Eurekalert reported on August 14…"A Tiny Fraction of Oceans Could Satisfy the World's Fish Demand".

The National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis NCEAS echoed the report "Oceans have vast, untapped potential for sustainable aquaculture".  PHYS reported on the same day "Can Offshore Fish Farming Feed a Hungry World?"

The Imperial College of London jumped in and titled their angled report "Sustainable Fish Farming is Possible for the Majority of Coastal Countries". The University of California ran a piece titled "Seafood for Everyone".

Reporting on the new paper published in Nature ZME Science assured that "Fish Farming could cover our demand for seafood one hundred times over".

According to the new report "harvesting fish and shellfish from offshore farms could help provide essential protein to a global population set to expand a third to 10 billion by mid-century".

The report conducted by researchers of the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis NCEAS and researchers of UC Santa Barbara’s Bren School of Environmental Science and Management assures that aquaculture could play a much wider role in the development of global population afflictions. The implications of the paper spread out like branches in all direction; from food security, global food demand, global, population issues, economy and business, world food market, environment, poverty and diseases, nutrition and human health and even to more sensitive issues like piracy.

The report is also aligned with a new tendency which looks into the Oceans for its potential for humanity. Recently Oceans have began to provide real solutions to global problems.

“There is a growing sense of ‘ocean optimism’ -that economic development involving the oceans can lead to improved human well-being. Yet there is a simultaneously increasing concern among scientists, policymakers and the private sector about the declining health of our oceans. The recent United Nations Ocean Conference on Sustainable Development Goal 14 (life below water) encompassed both these somewhat contradictory perspectives,” Nature reported.

“Agriculture also accounts for 70 % of global freshwater consumption, contributes almost 24 % of global greenhouse gas emissions, and today occupies approximately 40 % of the Earth’s surface,” those who advocate for aquaculture to kick into the sector assure.

Fish programs already in execution have proven that they can not only alleviate poverty and trigger human development while derailing illegal activities and keeping the ecology and environment in line but present significant benefits for wider social human health. Fish and ocean food products have a very rich nutrition range. Diseases caused by lack of nutrition, vitamin deficiency and poor diets have been reversed under fish programs.

With a global population peaking to 10 billion the search for new sources of protein will without doubt eventually take to the ocean. It is not a matter of if, but a matter of when.

Factor Tech reported that the Oceans are the answers to future food security but we're not using it.  

“The vast majority of coastal countries on Earth are missing out on a valuable resource to ensure future food security,” researchers of NCEAS told the press.

“There are only a couple of countries that are producing the vast majority of what’s being produced right now in the oceans,” Lead Author Rebecca Gentry, from UC Santa Barbara’s Bren School of Environmental Science and Management added. “We show that aquaculture could actually be spread a lot more across the world, and every coastal country has this opportunity.”

Researchers highlighted that government's complete lack of will is what blocks the way to ocean development and perpetuates the global situation.

“There is a lot of space that is suitable for aquaculture, and that is not what’s going to limit its development,” Gentry said. “It’s going to be other things such as governance and economics.”

Researchers also found a strange pattern while conducting their investigation. Many countries -like the US which has numerous untapped hot-spots for the development of seafood production import most of their sea-food demand. The US is just one of these countries which fall under this strange pattern. US imports over 90% of its seafood. This is tolls into an economic impact and trade deficit for seafood alone that tops 13 billion USD.

“The US could produce its entire domestic supply using just 0.01% of its ocean territory,” researchers assured and pointed to the untapped hot-spots they found both on the Atlantic and Pacific US coasts..

According to researchers of the paper there are many regions and countries which are included in this paradigm.

“Worldwide, the story is similar: aquaculture could match the entire seafood production of every wild-caught fishery using a combined area the size of Lake Michigan: less than 1% of the total ocean surface,” scientists concluded.

“Marine aquaculture provides a means and an opportunity to support both human livelihoods and economic growth, in addition to providing food security,” Co-Author Ben Halpern and Executive Director of the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis -NCEAS jumped into the talk.

“It’s not a question of if aquaculture will be part of future food production but, instead, where and when. Our results help guide that trajectory.”

“Aquaculture is expected to increase by 39% in the next decade,” Co-Author Halley Froehlich, a postdoctoral researcher at NCEAS adds. “Not only is this growth rate fast, but the amount of biomass aquaculture produces has already surpassed wild seafood catches and beef production.”

“Like any food system, aquaculture can be done poorly; we’ve seen it,” said Froehlich. “This is really an opportunity to shape the future of food for the betterment of people and the environment.”

Hot-Spots mapped in details in the report published free online in Nature are spread across all continents and all oceans. From US to Canada to the Caribbean, Pacific and Atlantic Ocean, as well China Sea, Indian Ocean, Asia, Australia, North Brazil, Chile, South America and Argentina to Africa, Europe and even Arctic Zones. All locations which are not currently developed have immense potential.

“We found that over 11.4 million square kilometers are potentially suitable for fish and over 1.5 million square kilometers could be developed for bivalves. Both fish and bivalve aquaculture showed expansive potential across the globe, including both tropical and temperate countries,” the report concludes.

“The total potential production is considerable...We need to find more protein for our growing population (without degrading our ocean or overfishing wild species), and we have pretty much tapped out wild fish as protein sources," researchers kicked it.