With worldwide fish consumption at an all time high, and with 46 percent of the fish consumed now coming from fish farms, Sweden is looking to increase its fish farming tenfold, according to Dr. Björn Frostell at the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology, (KTH) in a press release.
The key to making this increase sustainable, Frostell said, is to avoid the kinds of environmental problems that fish farming has created in other parts of the world.
An example of both the economic importance of fish farming and its environmental drawbacks, came earlier this week when Swedish media reported that the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) had been pressured by the government of Vietnam take the country’s most important farmed fish, the striped catfish, off the WWF’s red list. The catfish had replaced cod in many Swedish kitchens after cod was put on the WWF’s list of threatened species.
Last December, WWF put Vietnamese catfish on its red list due to environmental degradation caused by farming, saying that catfish farms have caused serious environmental issues along Vietnam’s Mekong River.
Frostell said that there are many ways to improve commercial fish farming, and he will be exploring some in his research project, Fishwelfare, which he recently began with two colleagues. The project will look at what kinds of criteria must be met to create an ecologically sustainable commercial fish farming industry.
“The fish feed must be produced in a more sustainable way than it is now, and the farming itself must be better adapted to the environment. Also, transports must be reduced,” Frostell said.
In the future, Swedish fish farms could raise new species such as perch and bass. Frostell also said that thousands of new job opportunities could be created on fish farms in the country. These jobs, he said, could benefit immigrants from other countries who have experience in agriculture and fishing and who would otherwise have a hard time finding work in these industries in Sweden.
The key to making this increase sustainable, Frostell said, is to avoid the kinds of environmental problems that fish farming has created in other parts of the world.
An example of both the economic importance of fish farming and its environmental drawbacks, came earlier this week when Swedish media reported that the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) had been pressured by the government of Vietnam take the country’s most important farmed fish, the striped catfish, off the WWF’s red list. The catfish had replaced cod in many Swedish kitchens after cod was put on the WWF’s list of threatened species.
Last December, WWF put Vietnamese catfish on its red list due to environmental degradation caused by farming, saying that catfish farms have caused serious environmental issues along Vietnam’s Mekong River.
Frostell said that there are many ways to improve commercial fish farming, and he will be exploring some in his research project, Fishwelfare, which he recently began with two colleagues. The project will look at what kinds of criteria must be met to create an ecologically sustainable commercial fish farming industry.
“The fish feed must be produced in a more sustainable way than it is now, and the farming itself must be better adapted to the environment. Also, transports must be reduced,” Frostell said.
In the future, Swedish fish farms could raise new species such as perch and bass. Frostell also said that thousands of new job opportunities could be created on fish farms in the country. These jobs, he said, could benefit immigrants from other countries who have experience in agriculture and fishing and who would otherwise have a hard time finding work in these industries in Sweden.
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