Certification of feed ingredients

by Petter Johannessen, Director General, IFFO

“There is no alternative to sustainability” was one among the strong statements delivered by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in early June when presenting the 2020 State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture. How can sustainability be assessed and ensure both food for an increasing population and minimised impacts on biodiversity and ecosystems?

First, I suggest that we start with clarifying what is at stake. In this respect, I welcome the FAO’s presentation of the status of fish stocks: by volume, 78.7 percent of marine fish comes from biologically sustainable fish populations. This means that 21.3 percent (in volume) and 34.2 percent (in number) of fisheries need improvement.
 

Second, we need to consider that every food production system generates impacts and has its own specificities. However, a shared vision is necessary to enable an unbiased comparison to be made between all systems.

In the case of marine ingredients, a sector which is currently dominated by fishmeal and fish oil, certification programmes exist, from MarinTrust and Global GAP as well as FEMAS (whose certification unit is the fishmeal and fish oil plant) to MSC (assessing fisheries). Through Chain of Custody standards, by-products can be traced back to their origin, allowing for less fish to be wasted and championing good practices versus IUU. It is MarinTrust’s ambition to achieve full product traceability back to its origins, drawing upon blockchain technologies in the new version of its Chain of Custody published late July 2020. Today, over 50 percent of marine ingredients worldwide are certified.

What about terrestrial ingredients? Why are the share of certified volumes so low compared to marine ingredients? Two percent of soy and 19 percent of palm oil production is currently certified. Intense scrutiny over ingredients originating from oceans, as well as strong supply chain dependencies, explain the interest that markets (consumers) have been demonstrating in favour of certification programmes since the 2010s. Fish farmers, particularly those that supply western markets, must meet high market expectations while chicken, pork and beef producers are not held to the same set of expectations since they do not have to compete with wild alternatives. The exposure of the marine ingredient sector, and also of the aquaculture sector, is gradually being turned to its advantage.

Read more, HERE.

The Aquaculturists

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