Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Seaweed Farming May Be Key For Alternative Aquaculture Feeds

Dr John Forster, a US consultant looks at whether seaweeds could be used in aquaculture feeds.

Could seaweeds be used in aquaculture feeds? The answer appears to be yes. While terrestrial ingredients have served as the immediate replacements for fish meal in aquaculture feeds, the possible use of seaweeds in the future holds the promise that marine aquaculture could, one day, be sustained without using land, fresh water, or fertiliser.

Presently, there are about 14 million metric tons (15.4 million US tons) of seaweed farmed worldwide compared to about one mmt harvested from the wild. Most seaweed is farmed in Asia where about half is used for human consumption and half for industrial processing into marine colloids (used to make paint and foods smooth) and other products.

Extrapolation from Chinese production of a seaweed known as Laminaria, for which the average yield in 2004 was 19.4 mt dry weight per hectare (8.7 US tons per acre) suggests that the world's present total agricultural out put of about five billion mt (5.5 billion US tons) could be matched by seaweed production in an area of 2.6 million km (1.0 million square miles). This is only 0.74 percent of the 349 million km_ (135 mil- lion square miles) covered by the world's oceans. Read more...

This blog is written by Martin Little The Aquaculturists, published and supported by the International Aquafeed Magazine from Perendale Publishers.

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