Hopp til hovednavigasjon Hopp til hovedinnhold

How to feed the world

Fish farming is an important part of the solution on how to feed a growing world population.

The world’s population is growing. In the 70’s, there were around 4 billion people worldwide. Now, the world populations is rapidly approaching 7 billion, and by 2050, it is expected to grow to 9 billion.

With increased standard of living, people also eat more food, especially protein. As a consequence, we need to produce more protein-rich food, such as meat, eggs, milk and seafood. To improve human health and nutrition, researchers and governments advise people to eat more seafood.

Producing more food is an enormous challenge. Globally, wild fish stocks are stretched to the limit, and sometimes beyond. There is limited supply of fresh water for use in agriculture. Add to this that food production is a significant contributor to global climate gas emissions.

Fish farming, including salmon farming, is in this perspective an excellent way of increasing the world's food production:

• Salmon farming is an efficient way of producing food
• Salmon farming is climate friendly
• Salmon is very nutritious
• Salmon are raised in the ocean, and the fresh water we use for farming comes from rivers where the fresh water runs into the sea. Therefore, we do not add to the challenge of utilising scarce fresh-water resources.

Published date: 31 Jan 2011

Feeding the world sustainably in 2050

Aquaculture can make a significant and sustainable contribution to feeding the world in 2050. That is the conclusion in this booklet from Skretting; How can aquaculture contribute to feeding 9 billion people in 2050 in a sustainable way?