United Nations: Fish Farming Could Reduce Famine

ROME, Italy, December 10, 2001 (ENS) - Aquaculture, or fish farming, is expected to boost food fish supplies worldwide over the next 20 years, helping to reduce poverty and food insecurity, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says.

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World fisheries production has kept ahead of population growth over the past three decades. Total fish production almost doubled, from 65 million tonnes in 1970 to 125 million tonnes in 1999, when world average intake of fish, crustaceans and molluscs reached 16.3 kg per person. By 2030, annual fish consumption is likely to rise to some 150 to160 million tonnes, or between 19 and 20 kg per person.

This amount is significantly lower than the potential demand, because environmental factors are expected to limit supply. By the turn of the century, three-quarters of ocean fish stocks were overfished, depleted or exploited up to their maximum sustainable yield. Further growth in the marine catch can be only modest. During the 1990s the marine catch levelled out at 80 to 85 million tonnes a year, not far from its maximum sustainable yield.

Aquaculture compensated for this marine slowdown, doubling its share of world fish production during the 1990s. It will continue to grow rapidly, at rates of 5 to 7 percent a year up to 2015. In all sectors of fishing it will be essential to pursue forms of management conducive to sustainable exploitation, especially for resources under common ownership or no ownership.

How to avoid murky waters

Both fish farms and agricultural farms are industrialized and contibute massivly to the pollution of the oceans. To change this we have to grow our food differently and aquaponics is a technique, which contibute very much to avoid murky waters. In aquaponics, the fish waste provides a food source for the growing plants and the plants provide a natural filter for the fish. This creates a mini ecosystem with no outlet.
Both plants and fish can thrive. Aquaponics is the ideal answer to a fish farmers problem of disposing of nutrient rich water and a hydroponic growers need for nutrient rich water. The water in the system cirkulate forever. You just have to compensate with new water what have evaporated mainly through the plants.

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