Text published in the book “Conversemos de soberanía alimentaria, agronegocio y agricultura campesina” (Let’s talk about food sovereignty, agribusiness and peasant farming)1. The book was published with the funds and support of Action Solidarité Tiers Monde (ASTM).
When we talk about soybean monocultures, the deforestation of the Amazon, the humid pampas of the southern cone and the serious impact of GMOs on those living near the fields in which they are grown, we rarely consider the fact that a sizeable proportion of what is produced is funnelled into the aquaculture industry, i.e. the production of fish and crustaceans.
On the contrary, the rearing of shellfish and other marine species in fish farms is often seen as a response to the over-exportation of marine organisms.
Aquaculture in Ecuador
Although the Ecuadorian Constitution declares food sovereignty a matter of national interest, there are increasing numbers of barriers to it becoming a reality. These barriers come from public policies, regulations or simply market forces that favour produce grown for export or agribusiness. One of the fastest-growing activities in the country is shrimp farming for export.
Ecuador is a major shrimp exporter. In 2021 it was second only to India for the largest numbers of shrimp exported globally (accounting for 24.9% of the worldwide total), and in July 2022 shrimp exports reached a 20-year high (National Chamber of Aquaculture, 2022).
Since the 1970s, shrimp farming has been continuously expanding into areas occupied by mangrove ecosystems, affecting local populations that have traditionally made their living from catching the species found there, most notably conch and crab. Now shrimp producers are encroaching on farmlands and wetlands of national importance too. These new shrimp ponds take over land that was previously dedicated to food production. In other words, land that was once used to provide food for the population has now been given over to the production of commodities for export. More land still has been given over to producing aquaculture feed.
One of the most important inputs in Ecuadorian shrimp farming is soybean paste, which is the main agricultural product imported from the United States. In 2021 the country imported 603,600 metric tonnes of soybean paste (at least 99% of which were of GM origin), representing a 4% increase compared with the 10-year average. Sixty per cent of these imports went into shrimp production for export. The shrimp industry is therefore the biggest GMO consumer in Ecuador (USDA, FAS, 2022).
Wheat is another major input in shrimp farming. Ecuador is totally dependent on imports of this grain. In 2020, the country shipped in 394 million dollars’ worth of wheat, mostly from Canada, the United States, Argentina and Ukraine. That same year – the year the pandemic broke out and most industries were plunged into crisis – soybean cakes, wheat and compound feed increased by 27%, 47% and 29%, respectively. Most of these products were destined for use in the shrimp industry, which also grew that year (El Universo, 2020). Imports of (GM) soybeans, wheat and other compound feed are projected to increase in direct correlation with national shrimp and poultry production.
Imports of other compound feedstuffs for use in the aquaculture sector have increased by 215% on average in the past 10 years (USDA, FAS, 2022).
The importance of feed to the Ecuadorian shrimp industry did not go unnoticed by Cargill, the world’s largest grain trader and distributor, which opened an aquafeed plant in the country in 2018. The plant aims to produce 165 thousand tonnes of Purina- and Aquaxcel-branded feed per year, which is equivalent to 20% of national demand. Thirty per cent of the plant’s output will be exported to Peru and Central America.
We are currently faced with a situation whereby shrimp businesses are importing soybean paste and wheat to feed their shrimp, and then exporting the shrimp (as feed) to the same countries they imported the original inputs from.
Brazilian soybeans, Norwegian salmon
Norway produces 37% of the world’s salmon exports, making it the top salmon exporter on the planet. The Norwegian salmon industry is the subject of a report by Rainforest Foundation Norway/Regnskogfondet and Future in Our Hands, which explores the industry’s relationship with mass soybean cultivation in Brazil.
The report reveals that the Norwegian salmon industry is highly dependent on Brazilian soybean cultivation: yearly imports of soy protein concentrate (SPC) by Norwegian aquaculture firms stood at 282,448 tonnes in 2017.
Today, Norwegian fish-feed manufacturers are the country’s primary soybean importers. Soybeans in the form of soy protein concentrate (SPC) from Brazil are an important source of protein and a key ingredient in the feed consumed by Norwegian farmed salmon. As the world’s biggest producer of farmed salmon, in 2015 Norway imported SPC extracted from 670,000 tonnes of soybeans for use in fish feed. Ninety-four per cent of those soybeans came from Brazil. Norwegian fish producers source their SPC from three Brazilian suppliers: Caramuru, Imcopa and Selecta, which were the companies the report focused on.
Over 100 million tonnes of soybeans are produced in Brazil each year, on plantations covering upwards of 30 million hectares. That is roughly equivalent to the entire land area of Italy, three times that of Portugal and more than seven times that of the Netherlands.
Soybean cultivation is highly mechanised and generates relatively few jobs for rural workers. Substantial financial investment and large-scale planting are required to guarantee economic viability – at least in the regions in which soybean production is expanding today. This can generate social risks, such as land concentration and a reduction of the space available for family farming.
Soybean cultivation brings major consequences for the environment. Its expansion into new agricultural frontiers, especially in the Cerrado biome, is destroying native forests and affecting indigenous communities, leading to conflicts over land. Slave labour can still be seen on some soybean farms, along with other working rights violations.
What is more, cultivation of this crop involves the use of highly dangerous pesticides, often without adherence to health and safety regulations. Since 2008, Brazil has been the world’s number one crop pesticide consumer by total volume, using roughly 20% of all crop pesticides sold globally. Various carcinogenic substances that have been banned in the European Union and elsewhere are allowed to be used on the country’s plantations. Between 2000 and 2014, the quantities of pesticides being used annually on Brazilian farms leapt from around 170,000 to 500,000 tonnes; that is a 194% increase in 15 years. There have been several reports of poisoning in schools, rural communities and cities in Brazil’s soybean-producing regions.
In addition, the report reveals problematic information about the soybean business network that links Brazil to the Norwegian market. The authors discovered that the three companies supplying soybeans to the Norwegian salmon industry (Caramuru, Imcopa and Selecta) have links to illegal deforestation and slave labour. The report also provides evidence of land conflicts, irregularities in the use of pesticides and the advance of soybean cultivation over indigenous lands.
Furthermore, the report exposes a lack of transparency from some companies that were not willing to share information about their policies for dealing with the aforementioned problems.
Salmon is one of Norway’s chief exports. The salmon farming industry is currently experiencing exponential growth both in Norway and worldwide. On a global level, aquaculture is the fastest-growing sector within feed production. Worldwide production of farmed salmon has grown consistently since 2000. In 2012 the world produced approximately 2.07 million tonnes of it. Over 60% of that came from Norway. The Norwegian authorities would like to see the aquaculture industry expand to five times its current size by 2050.
Food and feed manufacturers in Norway are not permitted to use GM soybeans. Yet non-GM soybean production is not necessarily free from the harms done to the environment and society described above.
Fishing the feed
A joint publication by Changing Markets Foundation, Compassion in World Farming and Rethinking Fish examines the impact of aquaculture on our seas, especially the impact of fishmeal-based feed production – one of the main inputs in the aquaculture industry.
Aquaculture is framed as a solution to the chronic overfishing of our oceans. But under the surface lies one of the most unsustainable industrial practices on the planet.
Fish farming is the fastest-growing food production sector in the world: today over half of the seafood consumed worldwide comes from fish farms, and that figure is projected to reach 60% of global fish consumption by 2030.
Reduction fisheries2 have been set up in several countries, but they are mainly found in the southern hemisphere, with Peru, China, Thailand, Chile and Vietnam currently dominating fishmeal production. In the northern hemisphere, the United States, Denmark, Japan, Norway and Iceland have sizeable shares of the market.
Denmark primarily trades fishmeal and fish oil, and absorbs half of all fish oil imported by the European Union. To make its fishmeal and fish oil, the country depends on thousands of tonnes of fish imports from Peru.
Norway is the European Union’s main fish oil supplier. It is also a major fish oil consumer owing to its position as the leading farmed salmon producer.
Germany acts as a fishmeal trading hub. It accounted for almost half (47%) of imports originating from outside of the European Union in 2016 and a third (30%) in 2017. The country traditionally sources its supplies from Peru, but in 2017 it imported most of its fishmeal from Morocco.
Some countries in West Africa have also started to produce fishmeal and fish oil in recent years as a result of increasing demand in major markets.
Peru and Chile jointly operate the largest reduction fishery in the world, which is dedicated to catching Peruvian anchoveta. Peru exported around 480 thousand tonnes of fishmeal to China in the first six months of 2018, which means that 80% of Peru’s fishmeal exports go to China.
Almost half of all fishmeal produced worldwide is derived from fish caught by Southeast Asian fisheries. The fishmeal produced in Southeast Asia is used in the region’s aquaculture industries for shrimp farming in particular. However, data is scarce and out of date for most countries. China is home to the world’s largest aquaculture industry and is the leading fishmeal consumer and importer.
India is the world’s biggest shrimp exporter. The growing shrimp farming sector in the country makes it a key consumer of fishmeal.
Farmed fish and seafood are often reared in high-density net pens. They are fed commercial feed manufactured by a multi-billion dollar industry. To make the feed, billions of fish are extracted from the oceans, minced and pressed into fishmeal and fish oil.
It can take up to 5kg of wild fish to produce 1kg of fishmeal. Almost all of these wild fish could instead be used to feed people directly; the aquafeed industry deprives vulnerable communities of a staple food, creates problems for small-scale fisheries and, consequently, causes hunger.
What is more, reduction fisheries are plundering the ocean in search of juvenile fish to farm and are exploring new species that were previously of no commercial interest.
This emptying of the oceans destabilises food chains and therefore puts marine life at risk. Of all the different types of fishery, commercial trawling is one of the most dangerous, as it is pushing the oceans to the brink of collapse and causing global fish populations to plummet: 93% of marine fish stocks have been either exploited to their biological limit or overfished, endangering wildlife and the vital source of food it provides.
Small forage fish (including sardines, anchovies, mackerel and herring) and crustaceans (mainly krill) are a key link in marine food chains, transferring energy to predators (such as tuna, salmon, cod, sharks and whales) at the higher trophic levels. They are extremely nutritious as they contain vitamins, minerals and fatty acids – Omega-3 in particular. Paradoxically, it is these very attributes that threaten their existence, as they make them highly sought after as “raw materials” for intensive aquaculture.
Despite there being a limited amount of information publicly available, the publication shows that several of the leading aquafeed producers supplying world markets, including Skretting, BioMar, MOWI and Cargill, source, or have recently sourced, their raw materials and marine ingredients from countries in West Africa and Latin America.
All this destruction of marine life can be traced back to the aquaculture industry and its activity of transforming wild fish into feed for the farmed fish and seafood that end up on the plates of consumers.
Footnotes:
- Elizabeth Bravo (ed.), “Conversemos de soberanía alimentaria, agronegocio y agricultura campesina”, from the series Investigaciones Comunitarias de la Naturaleza, Tome II, December 2022, p. 220.
- Fisheries that are mainly dedicated to producing fishmeal and fish oil
Bibliography:
- Cámara Nacional de Acuacultura de Ecuador (Ecuadorian National Chamber of Aquaculture) (2022). Estadísticas. https://www.cna-ecuador.com/estadisticas/
- Changing Markets Foundation, Compassion in World Farming and Rethinking Fish (2022). Fishing the feed. https://www.fishingthefeed.com/es/https://changingmarkets.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/SPANISH- WEB-EX-SUMMARY-UNTILL-THE-SEAS-DRY.pdf
- El Universo (2020). Shrimp industry drives isolated spikes in imports. Purchases of inputs such as soybean cakes, wheat and compound feed grew by 41%.) https://www.eluniverso.com/noticias/2020/06/28/nota/7888074/pro- ductos-importaciones-alza-balanceados-cereales-crisis-covid-19/
- Salmon on soy beans: deforestation and land conflict in Brazil, https://www.framtiden.no/aktuelle-rapporter/849-sal- mon-on-soy-beans-deforestation-and-land-con ict-in-brazil/ le.html
- RALLT (2022). Salmón noruego, soya brasileña. (Norwegian salmon, Brazilian soybeans.) http://www.rallt.org/boletin/boletin%20760-860/Bol.915.pdf
- USDA FAS (2022). Ecuador: Grain and Feed Annual. • USDA – FAS (2020). Ecuador: Agricultural Biotechnology Annual Report Number: EC2019-0009
