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

Food is getting some tech-savvy street cred as Wired magazine puts “The Future of Food” front and center in its November 2008 issue.

The magazine dishes about why the chemical age of agriculture is “running out of juice” at a time when demand for food continues to soar and output struggles to keep pace. It suggests it is time to put our heads together to innovate and incite a “new” green revolution in the midst of the current food crisis.

By way of spectacularly iridescent graphics, the article unveils some little-known and mind-boggling (and completely disturbing) facts about what really goes on behind the scenes in the food business. Through a stream of clever diagrams, charts, maps and tables, it educates us on how 31.4 gallons of water is used per ear of American-grown corn, how 4.83 pounds of methane is released in the production of one Big Mac, and how 1, 285 pounds of protein supplement is used per cow per year in our country.

What this color clad page-turner fails to point out, however, are the risks and irrefutable drawbacks this current system of agriculture represents and the externalities it has imposed on our health, our safety and our ecosystem. Although the Wired writers have added a few quotes highlighting the dangers of long food supply chains, exorbitant “food miles” and pollution from aquaculture, it never once mentions the words “local”, “sustainable” or “organic”. The cover story, instead, focuses on science and the potential of genetic engineering to solve our food woes.

There is no doubt that it is great to see food and its future take center stage in the culture and politics of technology, but we need to use America’s tech prowess in a manner that enhances and moves the methods of sustainability forward rather than having the potential to make our current crisis even worse. By promoting genetically modified crops and the hording of seeds, dependency on industrial-strength fertilizers and the impact on climate change that comes with it, the writers at Wired are taking forward-thinking in a backwards direction.

The magazine may have done better by optimizing its role as a pulpit for spreading high-tech wisdom and instead focused on how modern science may be used to promote more small-scale, local and organic systems of agriculture – those with the least number of negative externalities to us and our planet and which underscore the much needed principals of sustainability.

For example, organic methods involving intercropping, biological pest management, crop rotation, cover crops and other processes that utilize natural nutrient sources and nutrient-cycling techniques could be optimized and enhanced with the help of modern scientific innovations and focused efforts on behalf of the technology community. A case in point involves nitrogen fertilizer, an input invaluable to industrialized agriculture. Due to its intensive use, the nutrient has spilled into streams and groundwater and has caused hundreds of pollutant “dead zones”. Scientific research efforts could easily be focused on this problem and alternatives could be found to identify more effective and less harmful techniques.

Furthermore, attention to organic agriculture methods is imperative given the mounting evidence pointing to how organic systems can feed the world. Research recently conducted by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) suggests that organic, small-scale farming can in fact deliver the increased yields thought to be solely the preserve of industrial farming. Commenting on a report (pdf) released earlier this month, Achim Steiner, the head of the UN’s program, noted that “the potential contribution of organic farming to feeding the world may be far higher than many had supposed”.

Although the writers at Wired did touch on a few, more sustainable-minded farming methods, such as “push-pull intercropping, “remote sensing” and “data-driven rotation”, dubbing them “next-gen” techniques, the publication did not make sustainable alternatives the beachhead of their food science campaign, taking away from readers the opportunity to learn about the wealth of benefits that come with these systems.

The bottom line is that although some mainstream publications are on the right track in terms of zeroing in on our food supply and underscoring the grave nature of our current global crisis, magazines like Wired should not aim to apply a high-tech approach to further strengthen industrialized, synthetically-based farming methods, but must instead use their tech genius to help showcase the importance of organic systems. This approach will not only bring more to the table in terms of solving our food crisis, but will do so in a more sustainable, less destructive fashion with a greater guarantee for future prosperity.

During a recent visit to Europe, my taste buds couldn’t help but take note of some fantastic organic produce and meats while my eyes couldn’t believe how many listings of “free-range” and “organic” I saw on menus, particularly at the reasonably priced Parisian bistros. So what can we learn from the prevalence of organic and sustainable food choices of our Old World compatriots?

One glaring statistic is that more than three times as many hectares of agricultural area are devoted to organic farming in Europe in comparison to the U.S. and this land is managed by approximately 190,000 farms while only 12,000 farms are responsible for organic agriculture in America. In 2005, Europe accounted for the highest percentage share of the organic market in the world valued at nearly $13-14 billion.

What gives Europeans a big boost in the organic movement may lie in something called the European Action Plan on Organic Food and Farming, which was instated in 2004 by the European Commission. This government-backed plan not only provides for rules of engagement over the organic trade and improvement in production standards, but more impressively, it also funds a EU-wide promotional campaign to inform consumers, schools and other public organizations of the bountiful benefits of organics.

On top of that, European policy has also called for a budget valued between $60 and 70 million each year to be set aside for research on the organic foods sector.

America’s counterpart to the Action Plan is what the USDA coins the National Organic Program (NOP). It was instated in 2002 and regulates the standards for selling organically produced agricultural products. It requires that all farmers or food processors that wish to use the label “organic” on their products must be certified via a detailed array of rules and guidelines. According to the USDA, “efforts to boost organic production have focused primarily on developing national certification standards to assure consumers of consistent product quality and on streamlining interstate commerce in organically grown products”.

So although standards are clear, the NOP does not specifically state a budget of funds used to promote the organic label in public media and federally funded research on organic production methods is minimal. USDA agencies have, however, started pilot projects to help various farmers with production and marketing obstacles. According to The World of Organic Agriculture’s 2007 report, in the U.S. there is “little or no government support for being organic”. Less than 1% of America’s total agriculture area is designated for organics.

In spite of all that, the value of the organic market in the U.S. came in a close second to Europe in 2005 at €11.5 billion and our growth rate for these products continues to soar. In the U.S., organic products are all the rage and according to industry professionals, the market is at a new tipping point with regards to overall consumer acceptance and mainstream interest. It is projected that organics will experience double-digit growth in America in the foreseeable future.

By taking a look at how our European counterparts are faring in their support of organic agriculture, we can round up even more enthusiasm for the future growth and dynamism of the global organic food industry and we can state with confidence that this sector of the market is here to stay. By focusing more on informing the masses via campaigns and publicity, and supporting private and public research, in line with the EU’s Action Plan, America’s organic market could be poised to reach incredible heights. At some point, in the not-so-distant future, it may be possible to read the words “organic” and “sustainable” on even the most basic menus of our neighborhood haunts. Now that’s something to look forward to!