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If you had an inkling that fish farming may be picking up the pace, you are on to something. As global seafood demand continues to outpace supply, the industrialization of farmed fish (otherwise known as aquaculture) has been tapped as the new purveyor of choice in the seafood industry. In 2008, for the first time, according to a report being prepared by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), humans will have eaten more farmed fish than wild fish.

Farm fishing has been named the fastest growing sector of the food economy and has even been dubbed as the “Blue Revolution” in an effort to equate its ability to tackle crises in the fisheries industry in the same way the so-called Green Revolution paved the way for solutions to agricultural shortages almost four decades ago.

However, just as we found problems with industrial agriculture, we find ourselves faced with a similar round of questions with aquaculture, most specifically questions relating to standards of practice, impacts on nutrition and health and negative consequences to our ecosystems. And on the consumer level, what does fish farming mean for our consumption choices and our shopping habits? What do we need to know in order to make the best decisions about what to eat?

Regulation & Standards

To be brief, fish farming involves the cultivation of a population of fish under controlled conditions. Fish are usually packed into bins hundreds if not thousands deep, and fed meals in the form of pellets each day, similar to the livestock industry’s confined animal feeding operations, or CAFOs. Such vast operations could conceivably be universally regulated, but because a majority of aquaculture operations take place in several different countries around the world (China is responsible for two thirds of the global supply of farmed fish, for example), many nations have different standards in place and unfortunately some do not adequately regulate their industries.

Inadequate regulation can lead to problems in the health and safety of the farmed fish food chain similar in scope to the outbreaks we have encountered in the produce and meat industries such as E.coli and Salmonella. As recent as March of this year a virus called infectious salmon anemia (I.S.A.) spread through Chile’s farm fishing industry, killing millions of salmon destined for American supermarkets.

Healthy Choices

And farmed fish do not necessarily imply lower levels of Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) or other contaminants, as some may have guessed. A study funded by the Pew Charitable Trust in 2004 found that farm-raised salmon contained significantly higher levels of 13 pollutants, including dioxins, PCBs and other potentially cancer-causing agents relative to salmon caught in the wild. And, like their industrially-raised bovine counterparts, farmed salmon have lower levels of less Omega-3 fatty acids than wild salmon (or, in the case of beef, pasture-raised cattle).

In general, because farming operations rely on antibiotics, disinfectants and other chemicals to combat disease and promote growth, farmed fish can be tainted with residues. And because farmed fish typically swim a lot less than fish in the wild, overall levels of fat, where most of these toxins are stored, are higher.

A recently publicized report financed by the Pew Institute for Ocean Science focusing on the food pellets fed to farmed fish also raises concern. An increasing amount of forage fish — small fish like sardines and anchovies — are being used as fishmeal (pellets) and because their trace amounts of industrial pollutants are magnified when condensed into a tiny pellet form, farmed fish who dine on these pellets absorb these toxins in high concentrations. This fact makes the safety and health of human consumption of farmed fish suspect.

Labels and Guides

The best way to approach your fish purchasing choices is to arm yourself with as much knowledge on the wild and fish farming industries as possible. Try consulting some of the well established seafood guides released by organizations such as the Monterey Bay Aquarium (Sustainable Seafood Guide National 2008) and the Environmental Defense Fund (Pocket Seafood Selector). These handy pocket-sized guides can help direct you at your local supermarket fish counter and help you to answer questions like: Which fish are the most safe, abundant and in season or which farmed fish should I limit my consumption of due to concerns about contaminants?  If you’d rather stay paper-free, try sending a text to Blue Ocean Institute’s Fish Phone, which will text you back info on any kind of seafood you’re considering.  Just text the word FISH and the species in question to 30644 and within a few minutes you’ll receive a text in return, with environmental and health info, as well as alternative fish to try if the one you’re looking at is problematic.

The nonprofit organization, Food & Water Watch also has a fantastically thorough section on seafood on their website and has produced a Seafood Buying Guide which can help consumers learn more about their fish choices in an effort to make informed decisions.

In terms of labeling, you might find that your local supermarket fish counter does in fact have labels indicating where the fish originated and whether or not is it wild or farm-raised. These labels are part of the USDA’s COOL (country-of-origin labeling) rules that were enforced for seafood in 2005. The downside to COOL, however, is that processed seafood (cooked, smoked, canned, etc.) is excluded as well a majority of fish outlets such as certain fish markets that do not meet the USDA’s definition of “retailer”under the COOL standards. Therefore, there is a good chance you may not see labels on fish the next time you are out to shop.

To learn more about farmed, wild and our fish industry in general, link up with the following online resources and stay on top of the Blue Revolution wave!

Resources

Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch

Environmental Defense Fund Seafood Selector

A Seafood Snob Ponders the Future of Fish, by Mark Bittman, NYT

Food & Water Watch — Fish

fish, seafood, aquaculture, fish farms, seafood choices, healthy food