February 20, 2020 — The Global Aquaculture Alliance, which operates the Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) certification, has announced an extension period for Chinese seafood companies in the process of applying for BAP certification.
A statement from GAA Communications Manager Steven Hedlund said the extension was granted as a result of the outbreak of the 2019-nCoV coronavirus, which has disrupted business in China.
February 11, 2020 — With both aquaculture standards and fisheries management practices improving steadily, panelists at a roundtable discussion hosted by the Global Aquaculture Alliance said it is time for the seafood industry to call a cease-fire in the “wild versus farmed” debate and launch a joint effort to increase U.S. seafood consumption across the board.
The debate, titled “Come Together: Uniting the Wild and Farmed Seafood Sectors,” focused on how the U.S. seafood industry help land more seafood onto American dinner plates.
November 22, 2019 — The Marine Ingredients Organization (IFFO) and the Global Aquaculture Alliance (GAA) have released a full report on Southeast Asian fisheries, containing data not previously released.
In 2017, IFFO and GAA commissioned a study highlighting Southeast Asian fisheries and their fishmeal relevance, producing a final report that was delivered to Fish Matter’s Duncan Leadbitter and published recently. The initial report championed “a requirement for accurate, comprehensive, and up-to-date information as being of prime importance to the management of the sustainability of the aquaculture supply chain,” IFFO explained in a press release. Ultimately, the report concluded that “an integrated approach, based on the concept of collaboration” was the best route to positive impact.
August 15, 2019 — The Global Aquaculture Alliance’s GOAL 2019 conference, taking place in Chennai, India, from 21 to 24 October, will feature a variety of leading voices within the global aquaculture industry, including Ramanan Laxminarayan, Darian McBain, and Fabrice DeClerck.
Laxminarayan, the founder and director of the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics, and Policy in Washington, D.C., U.S.A.; McBain, the director of corporate affairs and sustainability for the Thai Union Group; and DeClerck, the co-author of the influential EAT-Lancet Commission report “Food. Planet. Health.”, will address three major challenges currently facing aquaculture during their keynote address, GAA said.
March 12, 2019 — For the first time, famed music and culture festival South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas, featured a panel on aquaculture dubbed “The Future of Food: Aquaculture” on 11 March.
The panel was led by Andrew Zimmern, host of The Travel Channel’s “Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern,” who is also a restaurant operator. In addition to Zimmern, the panel included Rod Fujita, co-founder of the Environmental Defense Fund’s Oceans Program; Fiona Lewis, owner and operator of retail market The District Fishwife; and James Wright, editor of the Global Aquaculture Alliance’s “Global Aquaculture Advocate” magazine.
The need for more farmed fish is incredibly apparent, Zimmern noted during the panel. The health of the oceans is suffering, due to climate change, marine pollution, and other factors. While demand for seafood continues to grow with the global population, 60 percent of major fish species are fished at sustainable levels, 33 percent of fish species are fished at unsustainable levels, and just 7 percent of fish are under-fished, Zimmern said.
June 6, 2018 — WASHINGTON — Through new techniques and technologies, farming fish is becoming increasingly efficient, leading aquaculture experts tell Saving Seafood in a new video.
“With a whole range of factors – improved nutritional knowledge, better management techniques of feeding on the farm, and all of that – [the fish in–fish out] ratio has gone down,” says Andrew Jackson, Chairman of IFFO RS.
“For every 0.7 kilos of fish in, you get a kilo of fish out,” says Dan Lee, Standards Coordinator for the Global Aquaculture Alliance’s Best Aquaculture Practices Program. “So that’s becoming very favorable towards aquaculture productivity.”
In the case of salmon farming, nutritionists are using alternative ingredients, including plant proteins like soy, and mixing canola and other vegetable oils in with pure fish oil. This has helped lowered the percentage of marine ingredients in fish feed to about 25 percent of farmed salmon diets, and projections are that this will drop below 10 percent by 2025.
“They’ve figured out that the key to being successful and profitable and sustainable is not necessarily to catch more fish, it’s to extract as much value as possible out of the right amount of fish,” says Tim Fitzgerald, Director of the Environmental Defense Fund’s Impact Division.
These improvements have made farming fish one of the most sustainable forms of protein production, experts tell Saving Seafood.
“When you’re growing chickens or pigs or cattle, the transformation between the feed and the [farmed product] is much more inefficient than with fish,” says Manuel Barange, Director of Fisheries and Aquaculture at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. “So if we have to feed any animal for us to eat, it makes sense to do that with fish. It’s more efficient.”
The video is the second in a series, Aquaculture Today, in which Saving Seafood interviews leading aquaculture experts on the latest advances in farmed fish, and its role in the world. Saving Seafood released a video yesterday on aquaculture’s role in feeding the world’s growing population.
In addition to Mr. Jackson, Mr. Lee, Mr. Fitzgerald, and Mr. Barange, the video also features Julien Stevens, Researcher at Kampachi Farms, and Neil Auchterlonie, Technical Director at IFFO.
Interviews for Aquaculture Today were conducted by Saving Seafood at the 2017 SeaWeb Seafood Summit in Seattle, Washington.
June 5, 2018 — WASHINGTON — Global poverty and malnutrition are falling worldwide, and the availability of affordable, healthy protein is a key reason why. Aquaculture, as one of the world’s fastest growing sources of food production, has been an essential part of this development.
Saving Seafood is taking a closer look at the role that aquaculture plays as a source of food, nutrition, and employment for millions of people around the world in a new series, Aquaculture Today. We interview leading aquaculture experts on the latest breakthroughs and developments in farmed seafood, and the role it plays in the future of human health and the global food supply.
Worldwide, protein consumption has more than doubled in the past 50 years, going from 9 kg per person per year to nearly 20 kg per person per year. Fish, as a cheap and readily accessible food source, has made up a large share of global protein consumption. As the demand for affordable sources of protein grows along with the world’s population, these fish are increasingly being produced through aquaculture.
“Aquaculture has been the fastest [growing] food production industry in the world for the last four decades,” says Manuel Barange, Director of Fisheries and Aquaculture at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. “We need to make sure that is maintained, perhaps not at the same growth, but that it is maintained because it provides not just nutrition, but actually livelihoods and economic opportunities in places where there are not many other opportunities for economic development.”
The importance of aquaculture to global seafood production is only expected to increase, with the production of farmed seafood expected to dwarf that of wild-caught seafood in the next 15 years.
“The projections are that we’ll reach 62 percent of food fish coming from aquaculture by around 2030,” says Dan Lee, Standards Coordinator for the Global Aquaculture Alliance’s Best Aquaculture Practices Program.
This growth presents an opportunity for fishing communities, which have a chance to diversify to meet the needs of the global seafood market.
“One thing that I would really like to see the industry support [NOAA] stepping up with is dealing with this sort of issue, trying to help these communities start to either diversify their fisheries or thinking more about how they can move into aquaculture,” says Richard Merrick, former Chief Scientist at NOAA Fisheries.
Aquaculture Today comes from interviews conducted by Saving Seafood at the 2017 SeaWeb Seafood Summit in Seattle, Washington.
View the video here.
May 18, 2017 — Lidl supermarket locations within the United States will sell only certified sustainable fresh and frozen seafood as part of its daily fish counter assortments, the company announced on 17 May.
The decision is supported by a partnership recently established between Lidl US, the Marine Stewardship Council, the Global Aquaculture Alliance’s Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) program and the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC).
“We are pleased to announce that our entire everyday fresh and frozen seafood assortment will be certified sustainable,” Lidl US Chief Commercial Officer Boudewijn Tiktak said. “We are proud to work closely with the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) and the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) in this step to ensure suppliers meet our high-quality standards. As a company, we are always working to make better and more sustainable choices attainable to all customers and this is an important part of that promise.”
“Lidl’s commitment to certified sustainable sourcing for all fresh and frozen seafood in its core assortment will indeed set a new standard in the U.S. market,” added Brian Perkins, MSC’s regional director for the Americas. “When people purchase MSC-certified seafood, their choice supports fishermen around the world who are working hard to meet the world’s most rigorous standard for environmental sustainability of wild capture fishing.”
Chris Keller, BAP’s Director of North American Market Development, noted the broad scope that such a commitment encompasses.
“This is a tremendous step by Lidl to ensure that its entire core assortment of fresh and frozen seafood is third party certified,” Keller said. “This important commitment helps address issues such as disease, antibiotic use and social welfare in the supply chain. Lidl clearly sees how this is the next frontier in responsible and sustainable sourcing. We applaud the vision and commitment of Lidle as they join with BAP to drive true change in the market place and the industry.”
August 22, 2016 — SEAFOOD NEWS — According to NFI’s Gavin Gibbons, Greenpeace is close to announcing a major new campaign to fund-raise off of a rank and spank approach to US Foodservice companies.
Similar to its retail rankings, Greenpeace scores companies in a subjective manner on how ideologically close they are to the organization.
For example, their retail “red list” contains recommendations to avoid some of the most sustainable and certified seafood products on the planet, such as Alaska pollock. There is no scientific basis for this.
In fact, Greenpeace is very explicit in their desire to halt commercial sales of these species. They say on their website:
“A crucial component of a responsible seafood operation is stopping the sale of the most destructively caught or endangered species. Greenpeace’s Red List is a scientifically compiled list of 22 marine species that should not currently be made commercially available. ”
And what are these species that Greenpeace would like to see the Foodservice industry stop selling?
The species, by order of commercial importance, include warm water shrimp, Atlantic salmon, Alaska pollock, albacore and yellowfin tuna, Atlantic cod, Atlantic sea scallops, hoki, Atlantic halibut, monkfish, redfish, swordfish, orange roughy, Chilean sea bass, Greenland halibut, bluefin tuna, red snapper, sharks and rays, grouper, big eye tuna, and ocean quahogs.
Of the 20 wild caught species targeted by Greenpeace, 15 are certified by the Marine Stewardship Council.
The two farmed species, shrimp and Atlantic salmon, are also certified by both GAA’s Best Aquaculture Practices and the Aquaculture Stewardship Council.
So, of the species that Greenpeace is planning to rank companies on because they believe they should not be commercially available, fully 82% of them are certified sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council or equivalent.
This suggests that the campaign is not about sustainability, but about positioning Greenpeace in opposition to the Marine Stewardship Council, and continuing to fundraise by telling supporters lies about seafood sustainability.
This practice is a very effective publicity and fundraising tool, known as rank and spank.
First Greenpeace creates its own criteria for rankings, not subject to outside review, and releases a report highlighting the malfeasance of companies that sell products Greenpeace wants proscribed.
Then Greenpeace agitates with the public and the publicity shy companies to make some concessions that raise their “score”, allowing Greenpeace to go to supporters and claim they are the tool forcing these companies to change practices.
Then, the cycle is repeated when companies that have complied with Greenpeace are called out again, if they don’t take ideological actions in support of the organization.
For example, Greenpeace called out retailers, and ranked them, by how strongly they pressed the North Pacific Council to close parts of the Bering Sea to protect Bering Sea Canyon habitat. When the US government spent millions of dollars showing that the habitats in question did not have corals, and were not threatened by any fishing activity, the supermarket buyers who had sent letters looked foolish and manipulated.
Some of them took the honest step of withdrawing their letters, once they learned the facts.
As NFI says, “Foodservice companies are among the most dedicated to seafood sustainability and full supply chain sustainability. To target them, rather than laud them illustrates how out of touch Greenpeace is with real sustainability efforts. While the group demands all seafood purchasing decisions be made based on Greenpeace’s arbitrary red list, foodservice providers work hard to ensure they understand the sustainability story of each species and the efforts underway to maintain those stocks.”
Many foodservice companies have committed to sustainable purchasing programs. Some support fisheries improvement projects and virtually all of them now demand full traceability to ensure the integrity of their supply chain.
There is no need for Greenpeace to agitate in this environment. The foodservice companies targeted in this list do not need to respond, except to show what they are already doing to promote sustainability, and to emphasize they were taking these actions long before Greenpeace’s rank and spank system ever came out.
This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.
SEAFOODNEWS.COM — September 16, 2015 — On October 1 the Global Aquaculture Alliance (GAA) will launch a revamped website for its longstanding bimonthly print publication The Advocate.
The website advocate.gaalliance.org will feature a variety of production, supply and market-related news for the aquaculture industry. The GAA will also terminate the printed version of The Advocate with the November-December 2015 edition serving as the last magazine to be published.
“The new Advocate website will blend the best of the 17-year-old bimonthly print publication with the timeliness, convenience and interactivity of a digital publication,” the GAA said in a press release.
Content will be updated weekly and accompanied by a weekly e-newsletter and a monthly, summary-style e-newsletter. The website will feature the production-centric content traditionally found in the print publication, in addition to supply- and market-related content. The site will also feature a variety of visuals — infographics, charts and graphs and videos — giving readers a more interactive experience.
Additionally, Advocate content will be categorized by theme, allowing readers to customize content by relevance. The seven categories are: animal health and welfare, environmental and social responsibility, feed sustainability, investment, marketplace, leadership and innovation, and consumer education.
Longtime Advocate Editor Dr. Darryl Jory will continue to regularly contribute to the publication as editor emeritus. James Wright, who was hired by GAA in early July, will oversee the day-to-day operation of the new Advocate website as editorial manager. The site — which is being developed by Visible Logic Inc. of Portland, Maine, USA, the same company that built the new GAA and Best Aquaculture Practices sites — is due to launch on Oct. 1.
The new Advocate website will be free to access, though readers will be limited to five articles per month; GAA membership will be required for unlimited access. Select articles will be translated from English to Spanish, Chinese and other languages. The transition from print to digital is in line with GAA’s mission of advocating, educating and demonstrating responsible aquaculture practices to feed and employ future generations.
The website arrives just in time for the GAA’s GOAL 2015 Conference in Vancouver, Canada. Over 400 aquaculture executives are expected to attend this year’s event, which will be held from October 25 – 30 at the Four Seasons in Vancouver.
This story originally appeared on SEAFOODNEWS.COM, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.