Ocean as a Future Source of Food

Ocean as a Future Source of Food

 Introduction

    The ocean covers approximately 70% of Earth's surface, which means it is the largest environment for living things on Earth. The ocean is an important source of food and other resources. Since well before recorded history, humans have used the sea as a source of food. While only 5% of the protein consumed by world populations comes from the sea, it is still an important contribution to the diet of millions of the world's inhabitants.

    There are five major ocean habitats: tropical or reef habitat, temperate waters, open ocean, the deep sea, and polar regions. Most sea life lives in the top 150 meters (500 feet) of the ocean. From the warm, sunlit waters of coral reefs to the dark, cold waters of the deep sea, the ocean teems with life.

    One of the main services provided by the oceans to human societies is the provisioning service of food from capture fisheries and culturing operations. This includes fish, invertebrates, plants, and for some cultures, marine mammals and seabirds for direct consumption or as feed for aquaculture or agriculture. These ocean-based sources of food have large-scale benefits for human health and nutrition, economic returns, and employment. 

    Two billion people worldwide suffer from malnutrition, a preventable yet life-threatening condition. Aquatic foods are rich in the vitamins, minerals, healthy fats and nutrients essential to human health and brain development, particularly in the first 1000 days of a child’s life.  

 

Current Production of Ocean Food

    Currently, wild fisheries account for 83.5% (49.3 billion kg) of protein, caught from the sea. Overfishing reduces the long-term food supply by unsustainably depleting populations. Improved management would increase yields by 16% or 57.4 billion kg of food. Bivalve mariculture could produce 80.5 billion kg of food based on current prices, currently only 2.9 billion kg is produced each year. Under current demand, food from the sea would supply just 62 billion kg of food per year in 2050. A normal demand scenario estimates 80 billion kg while a higher demand scenario estimates 103 billion kg.

 

Ocean as a Future Source of Food

    In the year 2050, Earth will have almost 10 billion humans. Who will need over 500 billion kilograms of meat. That is 2 billion more people and 177 billion more kilograms of meat than Earth currently has. By 2050, the ocean could sustainably provide 80-103 billion kilograms of food, a 36-74% increase compared to the current yield of 59 billion kilograms.

 

A new report estimates that the ocean could provide -

1.     Six times more food (Veg & Non-Veg) than it provides today.

2.     More than two-thirds of the protein needed to feed the future world population.

3.   Achievement of Sustainable Development Goal on Zero Hunger through ocean-based food, provided it is sustainably managed.

 

Why we should get food from the Sea instead of Land?

Food from the ocean plays a unique role in sustainable food security for following reasons:

1.    Limit of Arable Land & Production Potential of Ocean

        Increasing food production on land is difficult due to declining yield rates & agriculture land and scarcity of freshwater . Already, over half of all arable land and over 90% of freshwater is used in food production. Runoff from farms is a major source of water pollution and eutrophication. Unlike land-based food production, cultivating food from the sea is not limited by constraints such as land and water availability.

2.    Benefits of Protein from Ocean

            Of all the food humans require, protein is the most impactful macronutrient. Not only does it have a disproportionate carbon footprint, but livestock production is the largest driver of deforestation and biodiversity loss worldwide. Most increases in terrestrial food production come from replacing tropical forests with farms. Increasing protein production from the sea should be part of the solution. It has a much lower carbon footprint and far fewer biodiversity impacts. 

        Maximizing sustainable seafood will make achieving 2050 climate and biodiversity goals much easier. Seafood is also healthier than livestock. It is leaner and contains several micronutrients that are difficult to obtain from land-based food.

3. Climate Change

        As discussed above many forms of aquatic foods from the ocean have lower greenhouse gas footprints compared with land-based animal-source foods.

4.     Feed Efficiency 

        Compared with production systems for land-based animal-source foods, the production of marine-based foods is much more efficient when considering feed inputs, and some species cultivated in the ocean do not require feed inputs at all (i.e. unfed mariculture).

5.     Nutrition

        Foods from the ocean provide multiple essential, highly bioavailable micronutrients: vitamins, minerals and long-chain omega-3 fatty acids, which are not found in plant-source foods.

6. Accessibility 

        Foods from the ocean are readily available to most coastal populations and are an affordable, nutritious and often preferred source of protein for many low-income coastal countries.

The Path to Sustainable Food from the Sea

Based on the ecological and economic limits of producing food in the ocean, there are four steps to sustainably increase food from the sea:

1. Improve Fishery Management

    Improving fishery management will maximize the amount of wild food available to humans and feed for aquaculture and mariculture. Regulations have improved dramatically over the past few decades, but there is still room for improvement. A major focus should be on developing countries that don’t have the capacity to manage and enforce regulations. 

2. Implement Policy Reforms to Address Mariculture

    Why is the ocean not filled with farmed bivalves? They are one of the lowest impact foods on the planet. Regulations need to encourage more bivalve and unfed mariculture. 

3. Shift Consumer Demand

    The economics of increasing the oceanic food supply only makes sense if people want to eat it. Under a normal demand scenario, food from the sea will make up only 12% of the planet’s necessary animal protein increase (compared to 17% of current amounts). A higher demand scenario would make up 25% of the necessary increase. The more food from the ocean, the better, as it preserves more biodiversity and has a lower climate impact than the alternatives.

4. Ban on Overfishing of Wild Fish Stocks

    There should be a complete ban on illegal and unscientific fishing. Local Government should run schemes to motivate the poor fishman on the coastal areas to stop the illegal and unscientific fishing. 

5. Sustainably Expanding Mariculture 

    All the countries should sustainably expand the mariculture, in a manner that minimise environmental and social impacts, including through the cultivation of unfed farmed species such as bivalves and seaweeds; and expand mariculture of species such as finfish and shrimp can contribute significantly to food production, but is challenged by dependence on fishmeal and fish oil as critical feed ingredients. This highlights the importance of identifying and scaling adequate feed alternative reducing.

 Author: M Sabir 

 Our YouTube Channel: Junior Geographer 

  YouTube Channel Link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCF7QosQ6SWUj2qvLVDoYvHw