Project

Integrated Aquatic Food Systems

Ending world hunger is a key goal of the United Nations’ SDG-2, which aims to ensure access to sufficient nutritious food for all by 2030. Aquatic food resources still play a limited role in this, especially those organisms low down in the food chain that have the potential to contribute to more sustainable food production. This project will, therefore, focus on the missing link of sustainable aquaculture and the utilisation of marine food resources.

In the area from land to sea, environmental characteristics vary. This provides opportunities for food systems. To use this, it is important to get insight in a balanced approach between food production and resilience at landscape scale. We will research and help to develop the sustainable cultivation of seaweed, shrimp and fish in mono or polycultures based on a landscape perspective along an environmental gradient of a tropical coast. We’ve chosen Indonesia as a case study for landscape-level integration based on previous research and our familiarity with the different cultivation systems. This landscape-integrated case study will enable us to develop new insights regarding the potential contribution of sustainably farmed marine food resources to global food security, particularly in Low and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs). 

In certain regions, the effects of food conversion losses, vulnerability to diseases, habitat loss and polluted wastewater mean that some modern aquaculture cultivation systems based on farmed carnivorous and omnivorous fish and shellfish have not been sustainable. Seaweed cultivation is one promising area, particularly in terms of sustainability, as it offers a good opportunity to restore the balance between economics and ecology in places where natural systems are currently being over-exploited, or where substantial damage has already been done. Sustainability will be improved through the use of combined aquaculture, or Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture (IMTA). This is a system in which fish, shrimp and seaweed are combined in cultures, thereby reducing climate and environmental impacts and usually increasing the farmer's income. This is partly because it enables more to be produced within the same footprint. It also requires less maintenance of the systems, resulting in lower labour costs, as well as less animal feed and disease control, which are usually major costs in intensive aquaculture systems.

Over the next two years, this project will build on the expertise already gained from the systems in place in Indonesia, and link it to sustainable food production on a global level. The systems in place in Indonesia will serve as models for that and provide a basis for further development.

Publications