Solveig van Nes from the Bellona Foundation, spoke about the benefits of Intergrated Multitrophic Aquaculture (IMTA) at AquaNor earlier this month and how the ocean can be used to feed us in the future.

She outlined the increasing need for food to feed a rising population, and explained that just two per cent of the ocean is harvested for human food supply, leaving plenty of opportunity to use it to produce food.

IMTA allows the production of more than one species in the same area of water, and the waste of one species becomes the resource of another.

IMTA allows for increased biomass with reduced need for feed, is energy efficient, and reduces nutrient load and overall waste, thereby minimising environmental effects.

The Ocean Forest IMTA project is growing seaweed and mussels, the first of which is around five times more resource efficient than crops such as wheat, maize, rice or soy, whilst mussels can be used as a fishmeal replacement in fish feed. In fact, research has shown that fish fed on mussel meal grow better or at the same rate as fish fed fishmeal.

Ms Nes concluded by saying that the future of aquaculture in Norway is not just salmon, but that we should think about future aquaculture as combining food, feed and fuel.

Source: Lucy Towers, The Fish Site. Read the full story here.