Building 13 algae farms would allow replenishing of all of the ocean ecosystems

Did You Know …

• We currently consume about 150 million tons of fish globally on an annual basis, 70 million tons is wild caught and another 20 million tons of wild caught is used in aquaculture feed to farm 80 million tons. FAO projects a 2x increase in fish protein required by 2050.

• Global capture fisheries production have been level for the past 25 years, but only through sequential overfishing, i.e. a continuous increase in the number of stocks fished at unstainable levels.

• 34.2% of fish stocks are currently fished at biologically unsustainable levels.

• With level capture fisheries production, aquaculture, the practice of farming seafood, now accounts for half of the fish consumed for food.

• Aquaculture currently requires wild capture of forage fish as part of its feed, so ~20% of the global wild marine fish catch is processed into fishmeal and fish oil for aquaculture.

  • Forage fish are small, schooling species, such as sardines, anchovy, krill, and small squid.

  • Forage fish consume plankton (e.g. algae, copepods) and in turn, become feed for cod, salmon, tuna, dolphins, sharks, seals, sea lions, penguins, seabirds, and some whales.

  • Without forage fish, all of these vitally important species could disappear, and this is already occurring with newly born sea lion pup fatalities of up to 70% observed due to inadequate supplies of forage fish.

• 1/3 of all marine mammals, fish stocks, and sharks are threatened with extinction.

• This widely recognized marine biodiversity crisis could quickly become a major humanitarian crisis because there is strong dependence in many developing countries on marine resources for food and livelihoods.

  • Fisheries and aquaculture provide the livelihood for 10-12% of the world’s population.

  • 4.3 billion people rely on fish for a significant fraction of their animal protein intake.

• The high level of omega-3 oils in fish are from microalgae, i.e. fish cannot produce omega-3 oils, they get the omega-3 oils from microalgae in their food chain.

• Algae also supply a plethora of vitamins, minerals, carotenoids and anti-oxidants to keep fish healthy such as astaxanthin, the pink coloring in salmon.

• Since algae are the base of the natural food chain, algae are ideal for supplementing aquaculture feed to reduce the use of captured forage fish.

• Building 30 algae farms supplement the fishmeal and fish oil in aquaculture feeds would enable reduction of fishing to sustainable levels and restoration of all ocean ecosystems.

Algae Impacts

We currently capture ~75 million tons of fish for food and ~20 million tons of fish to produce fishmeal and oil for aquaculture feed. Aquaculture produces about 80 million tons of fish for food.  Assuming a 20% reduction in fish catches would restore the ocean ecosystems, i.e. reduce wild capture to 60 million tons for food and 16 million tons for aquaculture feed, then we need to produce about 240 million tons of fish from aquaculture to meet the ~300 million tons of demand projected by FAO for 2050. Building 30 commercial-scale algae farms would supply enough algae as a supplement to fishmeal and fish oil in aquaculture feeds to achieve these production targets.  Thus, with Global Algae’s technology, we can meet the world fish demand and restore our ocean ecosystems.

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Global Capture Fisheries level for the past 25 years

(23% of global capture is forage fish for aquaculture feed)

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