September 15, 2020 — In the year 2050, Earth will have almost 10 billion humans who will eat over 500 billion kilograms of meat. That is 2 billion more people and 177 billion more kilograms of meat than Earth currently has. With land-based meat fraught with climate and environmental impacts, how much animal protein can be sustainably supplied by the ocean? A new (open access) paper in Nature titled, The Future of Food from the Sea, answered that question and provided an economic roadmap for sustainable ocean food production.
The authors conclude that 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. Crucially, the 2050 numbers were not a simple calculation of the carrying capacity of food production, but instead reflected the economic realities of growing and harvesting food in the ocean. The authors identified four key steps towards a more bountiful ocean:
- Improve fishery management
- Implement policy reforms to address mariculture
- Advance feed technologies for fed mariculture
- Shift consumer demand
In this post, I explain the numbers behind potential food production in the ocean and what the policy and governance process might look like going forward.