Joint statement: “FAO and its members must address the destructive impacts of industrial feedlot aquaculture”

joint statement to FAO SUBCOMMITTEE ON TRADE

In this statement by more than 16 CSOs and small-scale fisheries organisations, the signatories ask that FAO and its members adopt “blue food systems” that align with the ecosystem-based approach, the principles of social equity and animal welfare, and that they stop supporting the mass production of seafood through industrial feedlot aquaculture without consideration for the environment or local communities.

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The growing demand for “blue food” in international markets is resulting in an expansion of industrial aquaculture and the prioritization of an industrial model of fish farming.

The signatories of this statement (see below for full list) ask FAO members to address the destructive impacts of industrial feedlot aquaculture.

Aquaculture is presented by the FAO as a production system that can mitigate declining wild fish catches while continuing to feed the planet’s growing population. However, the term “aquaculture” includes various production models – with a range of social and environmental costs and benefits. Some may be relatively environmentally benign when conducted at appropriate scale, such as small-scale, non-intensive, family/ community based fish farming and the extensive cultivation of algae, mussels, clams, and oysters, whilst others - notably intensive industrial feedlot aquaculture - incur significant environmentally and socially damaging impacts on coastal ecosystems and the communities that depend on them for their livelihoods all around the world.

Social and environmental and animal welfare impacts

In looking at promoting competitive markets, FAO members should ensure aquaculture value chains are truly sustainable. For this, FAO members should not ignore the social, environmental and animal welfare impacts of the industrial aquaculture feedlot model.

Across the globe, the industrial model of feedlot aquaculture is displacing coastal small-scale fisheries, competing with them for space on land and in waters traditionally used for navigating and fishing, threatening their survival through the acquisition and privatisation of the coastal commons, and environmental degradation and pollution from farm waste.

The environmental impacts of this production model include eutrophication, causing increases in harmful algal blooms (including Red Tides), the accumulation of organic matter around farms, negatively impacting seagrass meadows and other critical habitats due to; massive escapes of farmed fish into the wild and fish die-offs, increased risk of disease epidemics as well as massive infestations of pathogens and noxious pests affecting wild fish populations, water pollution from the use of harmful chemicals (including pesticides, carcinogens and antibiotics), creating dead zones on the sea bed underneath the farms, and posing risks to human health.

Intensive aquaculture can also be detrimental to animal welfare in the absence of regulations to enforce good practices during transport, rearing and at the time of slaughter. Fish, as animals, are recognised as sentient beings, and protected under various conventions including the draft UNCAHP and the provisions of Article 13 of the Treaty of the Functioning of the EU. Yet over 133 billion farmed finfish endure great suffering fish farms and are killed with inhumane methods.

Attempts to farm new species such as cephalopods or Bluefin tuna, where high welfare standards could be impossible to meet, and where farming systems would be detrimental to the environment, local livelihoods and biodiversity, raise particular concerns.

Prioritizing wild-caught fish for human consumption over promoting farmed fish

Furthermore, if aquaculture is supposed to mitigate the decline in wild fish catches while continuing to feed the growing global population, the intensive fish farming model is nonsensical. Farmed species such as salmon, sea bass, shrimp and prawns require high volumes of fishmeal and fish oil from wild-caught fish in their feed.

This, in turn, affects small scale fishing communities, notably in West Africa, the Baltic Sea, and many other places, whose livelihoods and food security are at risk from  the depletion of wild-fish stocks to produce fish feed: the overfishing of small pelagics such as sardinella, sardines and mackerel for reduction to fishmeal and fish oil used to produce animal feed for industrial fish farms across the globe is endangering the future prospects of men and women all along the value chain who depend on small-scale fisheries.

Intensive industrial feedlot aquaculture takes fish and livelihoods away from local communities, especially in low-income countries, to feed fish in industrial feedlot aquaculture destined for consumption in wealthier nations. Aquaculture in Europe and Asia is particularly demanding on sourcing fish feed from West African fish. Over half a million tons of pelagic fish that could feed over 33 million people in the West Africa region are instead extracted from the ocean and reduced to fishmeal and fish oil, to feed farmed fish and livestock. FAO members should focus on promoting local and regional value chains that are vital for livelihoods and food security – those value chains that prioritise human consumption (cf. Article 11.9 of the CCRF).

Conclusion

The current FAO strategy for aquaculture does not respond to the social and environmental challenges posed by this sector and fails to clearly define what “sustainable” aquaculture is. Such indiscriminate support to all forms of aquaculture is not coherent or compatible with the FAO’s policy goals to achieve sustainable food systems that are productive, resilient, and equitable. 

We call on FAO and its members to:

1. Adopt a coherent approach to sustainable “blue foods” systems governance that aligns with an ecosystems based approach, animal welfare and social equity;

2. Stop encouraging mass production of seafood through industrial feedlot aquaculture without consideration for the environment, local communities, or to animal welfare;

3. Place small-scale, low-impact aquaculture, fishers and fishworkers, small-scale fish producers, processors and traders at the heart of their food policy.

Signatories:

African Confederation of Artisanal Fisheries Organisations (CAOPA)

Afrifish-net (Pan African platform of non-state actors in fisheries)

Animal Advocacy & Food Transition

Association pour la Promotion et la Responsabilisation des Acteurs de la Pêche Artisanale Maritime au Sénégal (APRAPAM)

Coalition for Fair Fisheries Arrangements

Compassion in World Farming International

Eurogroup for Animals

Fair Oceans

Fédération libre de pêche artisanale - FLPA Mauritanie

Katheti

Low Impact fishers of Europe (LIFE)

PLAGANEPA (Guinea-Bissau platform of non-state actors in artisanal fisheries)

Rauch Foundation

Seas At Risk 

Swedish Society for Nature Conservation (SSNC)

Syndicat de pêcheurs – Mauritius

The European Institute for Animal Law & Policy

Banner photo: Aquaculture farms near Berufjörður, Iceland, by Ed Wingate.

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