Summary
2050 is shaping up to be quite an ominous year. Forget the new millennium and " the end of the world ", recent predictions that our food supplies could be running out in 2050 seem much more troubling. Predictions about our oceans bounty, climate changes effecting land based crops, and the population levels of 2050, all tell us we are in trouble. All have a dramatic impact on our ability to feed the world. But wait, solutions abound, aquaculture is one solution moving in the right direction.
Analysis
"The world is going to get hungrier this century, and on a scale that will make the famines of the 1980s look paltry. The maths are simple and devastating: in 40 years' time the global population will be 9.2 billion people – a third larger than it is now. But to feed us all, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization says, we will need to produce twice as much food. " says Alan Renton of the Observer. This fact seems to be getting by most of the population these days.
The aquaculture industry alone cannot solve these monumental tasks we face, but it certainly can be part of a solution. One must realize up until most recently, a very large portion of our population consumed fish as basic and relatively inexpensive way to obtain protein for their diets. These inexpensive fish are currently being fished out, and in some instances these costal fisheries are closed. What and where do the people who depend on fish for their protein turn. And where does the remaining population turn for their fish needs.
Aquaculture has its own set of problems to deal with as it try's to maintain and expand. Feed, effluent (land based), waste (ocean based), land usage, water usage, as well as disease are some of the issues. But they are problems that are being solved and they also show that with better planning, design and operations, the industry has tremendous growth potential. And that growth potential leads to more product for the world to consume.
Some of the promise that we see in the industry is by developing methods for species new to aquaculture that are now being experimented with worldwide, this will be able to provide the ever expanding consumers of the world additional products. We also see more polyculture, where more than one species are grown in the same pond or tank, tilapia and shrimp come to mind. There are other polyculture start up operations that not only utilize the ponds and tanks for fish and shell fish but utilize the space for microalgae growth that can be turned into bio fuels.
The efficiencies of all our aquaculture projects whether they are land or ocean based must be improved, at all levels. We need to expand operations, move them closer to the raw materials used in feed production. We need to locate the farms closer to their markets and end users. We must be more efficient with end product usages. These are but a specific few. With our new technologies and our new scientific breakthroughs, we must dedicate our efforts to grow this industry. As we rapidly move toward 2050, we must realize some of solutions to feeding our new world are at hand.
James Aliucci consults with leading institutions through GLG
Analyses are solely the work of the authors and have not been edited or endorsed by GLG.
