Half of the fish eaten by people comes from aquaculture: by 2030, it will top 62%, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the U.N.
Health experts and marine experts agree that the importance of aquaculture to meet soaring human demand for healthy, balanced diets yet recognizes the demands put on the marine ecosystem. Veramaris, a joint venture between global multinationals DSM and Evonik, is creating a new technology to provide a highly sustainable source of omega-3 EPA and DHA crucial for human brain, heart and eye health that doesn’t impact marine life and enables aquaculture to grow.
As the demand for salmon at the dinner table surges globally, so does the pressure on small ocean fish used in feeding them. Overfishing and illegal poaching are depleting the world’s oceans finite amount of small feeder fish like anchovy, sardines and sprat. And farmed fish aren’t the only species that rely on those small fish for food: the entire global marine ecosystem relies on it.
Two-thirds of the world's fish stocks today are either fished at their limit or over fished: each year 16 million metric tons of fish are caught solely to produce fish meal and fish oil, with 80% going directly to aquaculture feeds.
The Veramaris breakthrough innovation takes natural marine algae originally invented by NASA for the astronauts for the Apollo space program to replace the fish oil derived from wild caught fish and still give farmed fish the essential omega-3 EPA and DHA fatty acids that American’s need.