At the North Atlantic Seafood Forum in Bergen last week a number of the organisations who had applied for the Marine Innovation Award gave presentations about their applications.Louise Buttle from EWOS presented a project that was based on a world of limited fishmeal and fish oil availability which could limit salmon farming growth. Covering research done over many years they highlighted that fish meal and fish oil has not been limiting industry growth to date but the fear is that it will into the future.
Interestingly they indicated that the issues are not just about the growth of salmon but also about fish quality, fish health and human health so all of those factors have been taken into consideration in their work.
The conclusions were that:
·
- Salmon can do
equally well on low marine feeds (when formulated to meet the fish’s nutrient requirements
- Based on years of research the showed that marine protein by half so with 250ktonnes it is possible to double the feed produced
- On same research can reduce the inclusion of fish oil from 15 to 10% which would mean that the availability of fish oil will extended until 2019 based on assumptions of current utilisation
