The issue of feed ingredients is among the top challenges facing the global aquaculture industry. The protein-rich feed pellets used in aquaculture are made in part from small, bony fish species including herring, menhaden, anchovy, and sardines.
These species, harvested worldwide for use in fish meal and fish oil, are under increasing commercial fishing pressure. Fish meal and fish oil are principal feeds ingredients for cultured fish species including carp, shrimp, salmon, tilapia, trout, and catfish, as well as poultry and pigs.
Aquaculture Pellets - Feedstuff
As ingredients in aquaculture feedstuffs, fish meal and fish oil supply the essential amino acids and fatty acids required for normal growth.
In the U.S. and elsewhere, studies are underway to better understand the nutritional requirements of fish and shrimp and to evaluate the use of alternative dietary ingredients in aquaculture feed, including soybeans, barley, rice, peas, and other crops along with canola, lupine, wheat gluten, corn gluten, various plant proteins, algae, and seafood processing by-products.
Groundbreaking research on alternative dietary ingredients (feedstuffs) for aquaculture, including plant based proteins, is expanding in the United States and worldwide.
Island Bounty Foods Corp. 
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August 20, 2008 at 6:15 pm
Stephen Azubuike
I see that there is a lot of information online from studies that seem to come from around the year 2002. What is the significance of this and why is there not more current research and data on world aquaculture that is current for today?
Since underwater agriculture is so vital to the word for food supplies, why is it that our governments are not doing more to feed the people??? Is aquaculture strictly private enterprise? Is it because of all the environmental concerns?
August 20, 2008 at 6:31 pm
Elizabeth Brownley
QUOTE: “The protein-rich feed pellets used in aquaculture are made in part from small, bony fish species including herring, menhaden, anchovy, and sardines.”
Okay, feeding fish “fish parts” makes perfect sense since fish eat other fish in the oceans and stuff. My question may sound stupid, but how do you feed the little guys like shrimps? Don’t they eat the microscopic stuff in the ocean?
If they are going to be raised in captivity, how do they get all those little particles they are supposed to eat so they can get big enough for us to eat? Just wondering.
August 21, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Douglas Beatty
Elizabeth very good question. In general .. Feeding is done by lacing the ponds with algae growth fertilizer and plant material to promote the growth of algae on which the shrimp will feed. The more intensive ponds use fish feed pellets made from plant and fish meals with binders to stabilize the feed while under water. The pellets are produced to break down slowly. So the little critters have time to eat them while the food is suspended in the water. The new technology being used is to lessen the use of fish meal in shrimp diets and increase the organic content. The organic feed attaches to specific algae floating in the water pool and the shrimp feed on these small particles up off the bottom. Very cool…
August 22, 2008 at 7:32 am
Lorraine F.
It was made very clear back in 2002, then again in 2004 that “there is now little doubt that the world’s fisheries are in crisis. Mounting scientific evidence points to dramatic declines in global catches.
Increasingly, many are making the case that farming fish offers a solution to meeting the growing demand for seafood that catching fish cannot provide.
Aquaculture now accounts for roughly one-third of the world’s total supply of food fish and undoubtedly the contribution of aquaculture to seafood supplies will increase in the future.
Aquaculture has the potential to become a sustainable practice that can supplement capture fisheries and significantly contribute to feeding the world’s growing population.
However, instead of helping to ease the crisis in wild fisheries, unsustainable aquaculture development could exacerbate the problems and create new ones, damaging our important and already-stressed coastal areas.” MindFully.org
It’s about time to quit wasting time and get on with the proper proceedures for feeding the world, lowering our already high food prices, and cultivating environmentaly friendly ways take careof our people.
Seems to me that we already know how to grow crops. If 1/3rd of the world depends on fish for food, then let’s grow some fish! Hats off to you guys for pioneering new ways to help people.