Shipowners\' increasing tendency to equip their vessels with refrigeration capacity is allowing more pelagic fish trimmings to used in fishmeal, the trade group IFFO said. Utilization rates of trimmings have crept up to about 33% from about 25% a decade ago and will continue to rise as companies renew their fleets. The use of trimmings, and improved sustainable fishing practices around the world, means that the pelagic industry will continue to be “strategic ingredients” in the future.

Gibran El Farizy, a student in Indonesia, established a startup aimed at making fish farming more efficient and productive. eFishery primarily produces cost-effective automatic fish-feeding machines. The device allows fish and shrimp farmers to schedule feeding times through a monitoring app on their smartphones, which has helped farmers save feed and use less time and energy to feed their fish.

BioMar Group’s Karmøy production facility has officially opened Line 3, which has an annual capacity of 140,000 tonnes of fish feed, increasing the output of the Karmøy facility by around 70%. BioMar Group has invested NOK 436 million at Karmøy in connection with the construction of production Line 3 and its associated auxiliary systems, new laboratories and control rooms. “Our new production line will be a substantial new resource for our business. It is a highly sophisticated line for which we have endeavored to find the best solutions available worldwide for the efficient and sustainable production of salmon feed for the future.”

Cargill announced it has signed a binding agreement to acquire Diamond V. This acquisition, which follows Cargill’s recent investment in Delacon, will give Cargill market-leading participation in the $20 billion global animal feed additives market. “This acquisition strengthens Cargill’s and Diamond V’s shared vision to be a leader in creating new solutions for evolving consumer preferences for sustainable and wholesome food production. Our combined businesses will accelerate growth, build industry-leading capabilities and natural solutions for animal health and food safety, and help fulfill Cargill’s purpose to nourish the world in a safe, responsible and sustainable way.”

Following a request from the Competent Authority of France, the Panel on Additives and Products or Substances used in Animal Feed (FEEDAP) was asked to deliver a scientific opinion on the safety and the nutritional value of a biomass produced by fermentation with Escherichia coli, a by-product of the production of lysine, as a feed material for pigs, ruminants and salmonids. The panel did not identify risks for human and animal health or the environment from the biomass regarding the genetic modification of the strain, and found that PL73 (LM) is safe for salmonids up to a dietary concentration of 13%.

The Sustainable Fisheries Partnership’s (SFP) has released its annual sustainability overview of reduction fisheries for 2017, and according to the report, the aquaculture feed industry has played an important role in promoting improvement through its support for fishery improvement projects. Furthermore, the fishmeal and fish oil sector has also played a strong role in promoting more responsible management of reduction fisheries. \"Praise is due the aquaculture feed manufacturing industry that has played a constructive role in supporting fishery improvement projects in key reduction fisheries. However, despite the good news from the eastern Pacific and Atlantic, it is still the case that almost half the world’s fishmeal comes from fisheries in Asia that are poorly documented and managed. The next challenge for the fishmeal and fish oil industry and the users of their products will be to catalyze improvements in Asian fisheries.\"

A new study has found that mealworm meal does not perform as well as soybean or fish meal proteins in LCA. The study assessed the environmental performance of mealworm (Tenebrio molitor) larvae meal via life cycle assessment (LCA) from cradle to mill gate and found that with an FCR of 1.98, feeding mealworm meal to poultry or fish would decrease the economic and environmental efficiency of these production systems. \"These recent results highlight gray areas in sustainable mass-rearing systems; however, several important value-chain issues need to be addressed before continuing development of insect production for the animal-feed sector.\"

A new deal which could help to create value from sludge produced by the aquaculture industry has been signed this week. The deal involves Blue Ocean Technology and water treatment solution provider Sorbwater Technology. “The co-operation minimises emissions in water and puts a value on sludge from the aquaculture industry.”

The startup NovoNutrients is working on making fish feed from carbon dioxide. The startup’s process uses carbon dioxide, along with other emissions, to feed microbes that can then become protein for companies that make pellets of food for fish. Those microbes are similar to ones that evolved to live near gas vents in the ocean; the startup arranges them with other species into “microbial factories” that work together to make the whole process more efficient. “We can take untreated flue gas from various industrial emissions . . . and just pipe it into our plant, rather than putting it in the atmosphere.”

During September, ENSO-neutral conditions were reflected in near-to-below average sea surface temperatures (SSTs) across most of the central and eastern Pacific Ocean. Overall, the ocean and atmosphere system remains consistent with ENSO-neutral, although edging closer to La Niña conditions. La Niña conditions are favored (~55-65%) during the Northern Hemisphere fall and winter 2017-18.

IFFO has calculated new Fish In: Fish Out ratios (FIFO) for 2015 and for the first time FIFO figures for salmonids are below 1. For every 1kg of wild fish consumed by the aquaculture industry as feed, a total of 4.55kg of farmed fish was produced in 2015. \"The fishmeal industry supports the production of a significantly greater volume of protein for humanity than would be supplied merely through the direct consumption of the fish used as raw material in the production process. This represents a significant contribution to global food security.\"

IFFO has announced the finalists for their 2017 Leadership and Innovation Awards, and they include Aller Aqua Group, High Fortune Group, and Sea Pride LLC, among others. “These finalists have demonstrated impressive examples of leadership and innovation, traits that will ensure that our industry continues to go from strength to strength.” The winners will be announced at the Gala Dinner of the 57th IFFO Annual Conference.

According to new results from the EU Arraina project, some of the recommendations on vitamin and mineral supplements in feeds for Atlantic salmon must be changed. This is due to a shift from mainly marine ingredients to feeds where more than 70% comes from plants. \"Even if the plants contain these nutrients, the fish are unable to absorb them to the same extent as they would from marine feeds. Plant ingredients also contain lower levels of some nutrients than fish meal and fish oil do. That is why we need to adjust the amount of micronutrients.\"

At this year\'s Our Oceans Conference in Malta, Skretting delivered a commitment to support Peruvian fishery stakeholders to manage their fishery to the highest environmental standards. \"The project commits to: improve the management system to facilitate catch control rules in the case of low biomass, by March 2020; to organize the data gathered by the industrial fishing vessels and encourage further technological development for better assessment and monitoring of the ecosystem by March 2020; to achieve a certifiable status by March 2020.”

WorldFish and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) will join forces with Myanmar Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation to improve the productivity, profitability and development outcomes of rice-fish systems in Myanmar. WorldFish has developed several approaches to increasing fish production and productivity in rice-fish systems. In northwest Bangladesh, culturing carp species and mola in homestead ponds connected to rice fields led to a 3.5-fold increase in total fish production compared to stand-alone ponds, as well as a higher nutritional quality of the production. “This joint research initiative will support the Ministry’s goals by providing an evidence-base for informed decision-making and policy development and building local farming and scientific capacity.”

A new project is focused on developing innovative approaches for the aquaculture sector, particularly on the use of organic waste for the production of invertebrates as alternative ingredients in fish feed. INvertebrateIT’s overarching objective is to bring influential actors together to define a Joint Roadmap and Investment Plan across the EU Atlantic Basin to promote and exploit the value chain around the production of invertebrates, such as insects, as ingredients for sustainable fish feeds, resulting in competitive aquaculture and integrated waste management. \"Creating a circular economy for fish feed (and other aquaculture products) by feeding fish with something they would eat in their natural environment, is a win-win for all involved.\"

The Mumbai-based WestCoast Group, a fully integrated aquaculture company, has partnered with Norway’s AKVA Group for innovative and sustainable aquaculture solutions and technology. The objective is to mechanize and improve fish and shrimp farm facilities, as the company foresees a strong market for aquaculture products with more State governments leasing out their water bodies for aquaculture.

A collaborative project to improve understanding of the effects of salmon farming on the seabed in high-energy waters is underway in Orkney. Currently, the impacts of fish waste and uneaten feed on the seabed are monitored using the DEPOMOD model, which is based largely on data gathered from sheltered, in-shore sea lochs. However, at more exposed sites, the benthic impacts can differ significantly from those reflected in the current model. “With better data about the benthic footprint at these sites, salmon producers like Cooke can improve environmental monitoring and compliance, and potentially increase production – both in terms of farming existing sites and developing new sites.”

As reported in the most recent EUMOFA monthly highlights, fish protein consumption -- especially from aquaculture -- is growing globally, particularly in lesser-developed countries. From 1961 to 2013, global annual consumption of seafood increased 95%. Although capture fisheries depend on wild stocks, aquaculture production is done under controlled circumstances, allowing for the production volume to be increased at any time. Therefore, a shift in the production source is foreseen in the near future for seafood.

BioMar has announced they will soon put into service a new high-tech vessel for shipping fish feed. The ship was formally handed over earlier this week at the Tersan shipyard the site responsible for construction. The ship is owned and operated by NSK Shipping, and is a high-tech vessel fitted with leading-edge equipment throughout and offers a cargo capacity of 2700 tonnes of fish feed. “The MS Nyksund’s slightly smaller sister ship, the MS Høydal, which was delivered some years ago, equipped us with some entirely new solutions for delivering feed in bulk. In this new ship we have further enhanced the technology seen on the MS Høydal and it complements well with BioMar’s existing fleet of feed carriers.”