The role of aquaculture in circular food systems

Summary

Circular food systems aim to optimise biomass use by, for example, prioritising biomass from arable land for human food rather than for animal feed. This reduces competition between feed and food. Animals play a key role by converting biomass humans cannot consume into food. This thesis focuses on the role of aquaculture in circular food systems. Specifically, I studied how aquaculture currently performs in terms of circularity, the role it could play in future circular food systems, and how circularity can be applied in aquaculture, with a focus on reducing feed-food competition. I found that, although some concepts of circularity are well represented in aquaculture, the issue of feed-food competition remains a challenge in the transition to more circular aquaculture systems. To address this challenge, it is not only important to increase the use of by-products in aquaculture feeds, but also to eat more edible parts of the fish.