Innovative Fish Farming

Sushi lovers, the health conscious and pescatarians have been hearing for awhile that we're rapidly approaching global fish collapse. Estimates say that by 2048 if we continue to consume fish from the ocean at current (or increasing rates) there will no longer be enough fish in the sea for us to consume.

Enter in fish farming a process which takes raising fish out of the seas, allowing us to raise selected fish species in a confined environment and, thus, theoretically giving the seas a chance to recur.

Unfortunately, fish farming has often proven itself as detrimental to the environment and to the fish species it's supposed to replace/support.

Open net-cage salmon farming, for example, in which the fish are in pens along the shore, have been shown to be particularly susceptible to diseases which jump to wild salmon when they inevitably escape. Even if the fish don't escape the free-swimming stage of the louse allows it to migrate from an infested farm area to nearby wild areas.

In addition, raising fish in such a confined environment leads to many of the same environmental problems that we've discovered in confined feed lot operations: crowded condition in salmon farms leads to farmers using antibiotics and pesticides in an attempt to control diseases, parasites and other problems. These chemicals inevitably pollute the surrounding ocean area.

Into the void of dwindling fish stocks on the one hand and environmentally polluting fish on the other hand steps the recirculating aquaculture systems from the nonprofit Conservation Fund's Freshwater Institute. Recirculating aquaculture systems, or RAS, are closed-loop production systems that continuously filter and recycle water, enabling large-scale fish farming that requires a small amount of water and releases little or no pollution. They are supposedly as efficient at producing large amounts of fish, but cleaner than traditional aquaculture. Although they require a capital intensive start up, which makes lenders cautious; they are beginning to catch the attention of investors.

This may make environmentally conscious fish eaters everywhere rejoice.