One of the most prevailing problems the human race is facing today is indubitably world hunger. How can sustainability be harnessed to help fix this issue? With the advent of more advanced technologies, researchers are increasingly looking for ways to maximize the efficacy of the world’s food systems. Just last year in the State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture (SOFIA) report, the United Nations stated that close to a billion people worldwide suffer from hunger and almost 2.5 billion people lack accessibility to adequate and nutritious food. That’s just over 30% of the people on this planet that are bearing the hardship of world hunger.
One solution that researchers are working on expanding is aquaculture, which is essentially the practice of farming fish instead of catching them. The fishing industry itself has established a dominant role in the world’s food systems over the past several years, and it has been widely taught that line-caught fishing is the best practice both for people and ecosystems. However, with the rapid growth of the human population, there is simply no form of fishing that can physically keep up with the demand of this food source by consumers (at least not sustainably).
The U.S. seafood trade is worth $17 billion, and nearly 80% of it is all imported–the U.S. is also notoriously falling behind other countries in terms of aquaculture regulation. Currently, only the AQUAA Act is in place to loosely standardize fish farming, but further policies need to be instated in order to keep up with the global demand for food, which is largely dependent on the performance of the fish industry. According to the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), fish is one of the most efficient sources of protein, which is what makes this issue so critical to solving world hunger. Additionally, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has released its first ever five year strategic plan for aquaculture, which focuses primarily on safety and sustainability.
In the past, aquaculture was presumed to be unhealthy by crowding fish in pens that would increase parasites and decrease fish quality, thus increasing the risk of escape into native waterways and becoming an invasive species which would disrupt outside ecosystems. Fish quality is particularly important for fish farmers themselves, since the higher quality their fish, the more money it sells for–they have the economic incentive to farm the healthiest fish possible. It is statistically impossible to maintain the rate at which the fish industry has been depleting resources for the following generations since fish populations cannot regenerate at such a rapid pace.
Today, aquacultures can be engineered to farm high quantities of fish while retaining quality, health, and safety, especially as research and regulation increases. Cultures raised sustainably require a ratio of 98% water to 2% fish per pen to prevent contamination and reduce any necessary treatments. Aquaculture technology can now utilize AI and remotely operating vehicles to closely monitor the farmed fish and eliminate microplastics. As technology and its relationship with the fish industry improves, we are one step closer to diminishing world hunger.
Photo by Sebastian Pena Lambarri on Unsplash
Written by Carole Wilay (‘25)