The market
The global market for farmed fish and edible aquatic plants was valued at $106 billion in 2008. Over a 38-year period (1970-2008), fish farming maintained a steady growth rate of 6.6%, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Since 2008, more money has been earned from fish raised in ponds and reservoirs than from fish caught in rivers and seas, which are valued at $94 billion, including a record 10 billion tons from inland waters. Together, wild fisheries and aquaculture provided 142 million tons of protein to the world. The value of farmed fish is slightly higher than that of wild-caught fish, which, by volume, accounts for 46% of all fish consumed. There is still considerable room for improvement in productivity. Annual per capita production in Norway is 172 tonnes, the highest in the world. China lags behind with 6 tonnes, and India with only 2 tonnes. Aquaculture is the fastest-growing sector of animal-based food production and one of the few to outpace population growth. There are 220 species of fish and shellfish farmed. China is the world's largest producer, accounting for 62% of global fish farming by volume and 51% by value, and focuses primarily on carp. Latin America has the highest average annual growth rate, at 21.1% over nearly four decades, mainly with tilapia originating from Africa. Africa is absent from the scene, even though the continent is home to approximately 25% of the world's freshwater fish biodiversity. Formerly leading countries like France, Spain, and Japan have seen a decline in production over the past decade. Per capita consumption of farmed fish increased from 700 g in 1970 to 17 kg in 2008. Fish accounted for 15.7% of global animal protein consumption and 6.1% of total protein consumption. Employment in the sector has grown substantially, increasing by 3.6% annually since 1980. An estimated 45 million people are directly involved in aquaculture. For every person employed, approximately three jobs are created in secondary activities, bringing the total to 180 million jobs worldwide, a 167% increase since 1980. Thus, the growth in both employment and production exceeds that of the world's population.
Innovation
The growth of aquaculture is increasingly hampered by a lack of fresh water. Furthermore, many high-value species are carnivores that require fishmeal for food. While soybean meal costs between $350 and $400, fishmeal still costs over $1,000. The argument is that it doesn't make sense to kill fish for feed; they should be eaten directly, contributing to greater global food security. Fish raised together in farms consume massive amounts of feed, defecate, and create pollution, making life difficult in the ecosystem and increasing the risk of diseases that can wipe out entire industries, as was the case with White Spot Syndrome Virus (WSSV), which decimated shrimp farming. The increased demand for antibiotics weakens the human immune system and thus triggers government regulations. The organic waste from fish farms feeds algae, consumes oxygen, and renders the area uninhabitable, comparable to fertilizer runoff from agriculture. The old strategy of diluting pollution is ineffective in this case, given the intensity of agricultural activity. Professor George Chan, who spent his career as a sanitary engineer at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, took early retirement at the age of 59 and returned to his ancestral lands in China to study rural livelihoods while restoring his old family home. He learned how the Chinese raise fish without feeding them. While their productivity would be considered low by European and American standards, their efficiency in producing protein from fish, pork, algae, and plant products is high, even surpassing the productivity of Norwegian salmon farms. While experts trained in the core business would measure the yield of a single farmed fish, the professor realized that the 7.5 tons of fish per worker are supplemented by pork, ducks, rice, cucumbers, seaweed, biogas, and much more. Mr. Chan learned how every Chinese pig farm (or poultry farm) carefully collects manure in a digester. This generates biogas. The sludge flows through seaweed ponds, further mineralizing the biological matter. This, in turn, produces seaweed in a series of shallow seaweed ponds, an excellent feed additive, as well as converting the water into highly alkaline water with the ideal nutrient balance to feed benthos, phytoplankton, and zooplankton. The three-meter-high dikes of the ponds are covered with grass, which is harvested daily to feed the herbivores. The ponds are stocked with at least seven types of fish, one for each trophic level. The amount of nutrients in the ponds is high, but because bottom feeders minimize eutrophication and floating bed aquaponics absorbs the rich nutrients that are normally labeled “pollution,” all these elements contribute to increasing the overall productivity of the system.
The first cash flow
Mr. Chan left China and embarked on a mission to develop integrated fish farming. His first project in Fiji, established as a research center in cooperation with the University of the South Pacific at Montfort Boys Town, quickly became a benchmark throughout the Pacific region. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) organized a series of technical meetings to share expertise. The results surprised all critics, as fish production, without any purchased animal feed, reached 15 tons per hectare with a workload equivalent to two full-time employees. In addition, the integrated system raises 240 pigs annually (in batches of 60 pigs twice a year). The advantage of this nutrient and energy cascade is that the wastewater from the fish farm and piggery has been successfully converted into added value, generating more revenue. This cascade of nutrients, matter and energy, generating added value while reducing costs with what is available locally, is a typical characteristic of the Blue Economy.
The opportunity
China's practical experience in Fiji has been replicated on every continent. However, it was in Brazil that interest was strongest, where pig farmers in the state of Paraná were heavily involved in adapting and replicating the system. The project was adopted by TECPAR, the technology center that, in just a few years, installed nearly 100 integrated fish and pig farming production units. We were able to trace more than 250 projects in over 80 countries where George Chan's work was initiated and/or inspired by him, and developed by local entrepreneurs. All of these projects were implemented without even considering the positive effects on climate change. When all the economic, social, and environmental benefits are added, the integrated farming system competes with the single-product business model that monoculture fish farms or specialized pig farms have adopted in order to achieve economies of scale. Today, a new agricultural model is emerging where, through the application of economies of scale, the integration of productivity from the five kingdoms of nature generates more with much less, while creating jobs. This is the Blue Economy.
