New Discoveries in The Aquaculture Shapes the Aqua-feed Market

With the declining wild stock owing to over-fishing, aquaculture has to play a vital part in providing the necessary nutrition to aquatic animals. The innovative research developments help improve the quality of aqua food by increasing the production quality, quantity, and efficiency. Aquaculture of both freshwater and marine fish and other aquatic animals is the world’s one of the fastest growing markets. This has boosted the market value of aquaculture-related products and services, especially aquafeed. According to Allied Market Research, the Aquafeed Market was valued at $64.9 billion in 2015, and is expected to reach $156 billion by 2022, generating a CAGR of 13.3% during the period 2016–2022.

Growing Need for Aquafeed?

Aquafeed are compounds that are prepared–especially for aquatic animals–by mixing several raw materials and additives. Some aquafeed are manufactured by considering the prerequisite of the species and age of the animal. These are beneficial to fishes, mollusks, and other aquatic animals owing to their specific and balanced composition. The use of appropriate aquafeed reduces the pressure on wild fisheries to provide aquafeed. Complementary vegetables and animal materials in aquafeed reduce the levels of anti-nutritional factors, improving the fish health and its welfare. The feeds, mostly in the form of granules or pellets, offer the required nutrition in a stable and purified form, which enables aqua animals to grow to their full potential.

New Researches in Aquaculture

Recently, scientists have discovered marine microalgae known as Schizochytrium, that can completely replace the need for the wild fish oil. The fish oil is primarily used to feed tilapia, the world’s second most farmed fish. The scientists of the Dartmouth College conducted an experiment on the use of such marine algae as a sustainable feed for aquaculture of tilapia, and the results were published in a journal PLOS ONE. It has found that aquaculture uses more than 80 percent of the world’s fish oil and fishmeal. To satisfy such a huge requirement of fish oil, it is extracted from ocean-caught fish, which has led to overfishing. Therefore, this research in the search for sustainable and fish-free feeds is regarded as a major breakthrough. Pallab Sarker, the author of the study found that the salmon aquaculture consumes more wild fish than the farmed fish, which results in a huge removal of edible fish on the global basis. On the other hand, when researchers fully replaced fish oil with microalgae, they noted a remarkable weight gain, better food conversion, and no significant change in the growth rate. Moreover, the new diet had the highest content of fatty acids in tilapia fillets. Sarker stated, “Our study shows that Schizochytrium is a high-quality candidate for complete substitution of fish oil in juvenile Nile tilapia feeds, providing an innovative means to formulate and optimize the composition of feed while simultaneously raising feed efficiency of tilapia aquaculture”. Now, the Dartmouth scientists are focused on conducting studies in rainbow trout, which is used as a model species for salmon farming.