Miao Weimin, FAO, provides an introduction and background brief to the Regional Consultation on Responsible Production and Use of Feed and Feed Ingredients for Sustainable Growth of Aquaculture in Asia-Pacific.

Due to the recent increase in aquaculture and the rising demand for marine ingredients for use in pelleted feeds, there is concern that aquaculture is contributing to the over-exploitation of fishing stocks. There is a growing need for aquaculture enterprises to be able to demonstrate responsible practices, including the source of any marine ingredients used in the compound feed. Responsible sourcing can be demonstrated by purchashing ingredients that have been approved under the IFFO RS standard.

Thai Union Feedmill's initiatives to address sustainability issues in aquaculture feed ingredients are discussed in this presentation.

Over the years, there have been two growing sustainability concerns with shrimp supply chain, namely human trafficking and environmental impacts. Solving these two issues can sometime result in conflicting agendas. This summary outlines CPF’s approach and experience in dealing with the two issues. The most difficult challenge in our experience is in building trust and understanding between the stakeholders, including governments and regulators, fisherfolk, commercial fishermen, suppliers and buyers. However, we feel that CPF is now a pioneer in our programs.

The Department of Fisheries is responsible for aquaculture sustainability, including food safety, animal health and welfare, environmental integrity, social and community welfare and regulation of fishing activities across the whole aquaculture supply chain. The Feed Quality Control and Development Division is responsible for registration and certification of feed formulas and monitoring of feed quality. In addition to input controls, end products are also subject to inspection and monitoring, certification and traceability systems.

China is the world's largest producer of aquaculture feeds. With the development of aquaculture, the feed industry has inevitably faced some challenges in promoting update of commercial feeds, pollution, use of trash fish, fish meal and fish oil issues, provision of accurate nutrition and feeding, antibiotic residues, food safety, and so on. In order to balance economic and environmental issues the Chinese Government released its 13th Five-year Plan last year. Trends and policy changes relevant to aquaculture are discussed.

Decisions on feeding often diverge from scientifically reasonable optima, resulting in excessive nutrient input, low feeding efficiency, self-pollution, high production cost and negative environmental impacts. Innovations in feeding technologies and farming practices to improve feed utilisation efficiency are crucially important for sustainability of aquaculture. In this presentation the author tries to present some innovative feeding manipulations at farm level, examine some farming systems and practices that favour higher ecological efficiency, and share some thoughts on innovations at farm level.

Concerns about the health and safety of consumers are the driving force for the enforcement of traceability systems for aquaculture products. DOF's strategy to improve food safety related to shrimp production is a “Farm-to-Table” approach. This has been implemented through the development of a Code of Conduct for the marine shrimp industry, establishment of Good Aquaculture Practices for hygienic shrimp production, and documentation requirements for movement of chemical agents and purchase of aquatic animals.

Reducing the dependency of aquaculture on fishmeal is key for sustainable development. Fish meal and fish oil ingredients are not nutritionally required for farmed fish to grow as essential nutrients can be obtained from other sources. Alternative ingredients have been widely used in different countries but are characterised to be inferior in protein content, with unbalanced amino acid profiles and the presence of anti-nutritional factors. Combining alternative ingredients to get the same balance is possible but requires research.

Studies on fishmeal substitution have been conducted on many aquaculture species and publications indicate that some can be grown on fishmeal-free feeds with amino acid supplements. Quantities of fishmeal and fish oil in feed formulations have been substantially reduced and it appears that inclusion levels can be further reduced without sacrificing growth performance and utilisation of nutrients. The potential to utilise alternatives to fishmeal and fish oil in aquaculture diets is reviewed and issues and gaps identified.