Based on current practices, farming salmon demands wild fish for feed. But what if we ate some of those wild fish directly instead and only used byproducts (the heads, bones and other trimmings) left over from fish processing in salmon feed? How about if we added some mussels or carp—aquaculture species that don’t rely on wild caught fish for feed—to our plates too?

Building on our previous work on farmed salmon, these are questions that Foodrise, along with a team of scientists from Cambridge, Lancaster and Liverpool Universities set out to answer in a study recently published in PLOS Sustainability and Transformation.

Highlighting some stark ecological and social inefficiencies surrounding the production of farmed salmon, the analysis shows that if we removed whole wild-caught fish from salmon feed and made some changes to the types of seafood we eat, we could leave millions of tonnes of fish in the sea and produce more nutritious seafood at the same time. We could even still eat a little farmed salmon.

Sounds like a win-win!

Often presented as a way of relieving pressure on wild fish stocks and providing much needed nutrition for a growing population, aquaculture is the world’s fastest growing food sector. But some aquaculture species, like Atlantic salmon, are farmed using fish oil and meal made from millions of tonnes of wild-caught fish, most of which are nutritious food-grade fish that could be eaten directly instead.

We know salmon farming’s (continued) dependence on wild caught fish is unsustainable—ecologically and socially—in terms of the quantities of wild fish it requires to grow a kilo of fish and the fact that, fueled by the industry’s rapid growth over the past two decades, fish for feed are increasingly caught off the coast of West Africa, where there is increasing evidence that this is impacting both livelihoods and food security.

Looking at Scotland’s salmon industry specifically, the third largest worldwide and the UK’s largest food export by value, what’s novel about this research is its focus on the transfer of micronutrients from the wild fish fed to farmed salmon. Placed fourth in terms of the ‘big five’ fish species (cod, haddock, tuna, salmon and prawns) consumed in Britain, (farmed) salmon is marketed as being a rich source of important vitamins, minerals and fatty acids. And it is. Interestingly, however, many of the wild fish fed to farmed salmon have even higher concentrations of key micronutrients than their farmed counterparts

So, what happens to those essential micronutrients when these ‘feed’ fish are eaten by salmon? It turns out a huge proportion are a lost. More than half (!), in fact. In some cases, up to 99%! In other words, farming salmon, from a nutritional perspective, is an inefficient way of delivering required micronutrients to human diets.

Prawns aside. the ‘big five’ fish species currently favoured by British consumers are all just that, big, high trophic species. In contrast, many of these ‘feed’ fish are small – think herrings, sprats, sardines, and anchovies. So, what if we were to eat some of these small ‘feed’ fish instead? To investigate this, three alternative production scenarios were developed whereby farmed salmon were only produced using fish byproducts, and then more wild-caught fish, mussels or carp were added for human consumption. All alternative production scenarios produced more seafood that was more nutritious than farmed salmon AND left 66-82% of feed fish in the sea.

Based on findings on the Scottish salmon industry, theses alternative scenarios were then applied at a global scale. One scenario shows that farming more carp and less salmon, using only feed from fish byproducts, could leave 3.7 million tonnes of wild fish in the sea while producing 39% more seafood overall. So now we’re talking a socio-ecological win-win-win! More and better fish on our plates, and more in the sea.

These findings show salmon farming, in its current form, is not only an inefficient way of producing good food but quite irrational from a social and ecological standpoint – in terms of human nutrition and food security, unnecessary pressure on fish stocks, and overall fish production. Removing whole wild caught fish from aquafeed would go some way to mitigating these impacts.

Aquaculture will have an important role to play in terms of meeting global food demands in a manner which is sustainable – indeed, a key aspect of this study is that it does offer more sustainable alternatives. However, until marine-fed aquaculture, such as intensive salmon farming, moves away from using whole wild fish questions will remain regarding the extent to which this can become a reality.

In its current guise certainly, the ‘unpaid’ environmental and social costs of farming salmon for high income markets means this mode of production is not only unsustainable but raises serious ethical questions as well.

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As part of our EcoTalent project, seven young people took part in a 4 month Participatory Action Research project. Reflecting on their own lives to see where they would focus to transform the food system to be more just and regenerative. We travelled with some of them to COP26 , for them to share their perspective. Here are their reflections.

“The COP26 Climate Summit 2021 seemed to fly by. It was good to spend more time with my fellow colleagues and meet some new people. This was my first time visiting Glasgow and what a beautiful city it is. Super excited to see so many people from all over the world coming together to help solve the climate crisis – a lot progress still needs to be made.” Marlon Opigo

Presenting the ‘One Pot Community’ Manifesto

Josh presented his manifesto at COP26 – you can view it here. Here are Josh’s reflections;

“It was an amazing experience attending COP26 with the PAR Foodrise group. I know that generally people were disappointed by the outcome of COP26 but it did feel empowering to be part of the discussion around the food and growing system, and at the ground level. Personally it was good for my confidence to feel I can speak out and be heard representing young people and also neurodiverse people. I liked showing my ideas for a more sustainable and fair food system, along with my colleagues. I hope that along with others saying similar things, we can make a difference.”

You can view the full presentation here, we would love to hear your thoughts!

This week was big for methane at the COP26 global climate negotiations in Glasgow. As had been trailed beforehand, global leaders including President Joe Biden announced a Global Methane Pledge. The pledge commits to reduce methane emissions by at least 30% from 2020 levels by 2030 and transition to using the best methodologies to measure methane emissions. The alliance of 90 countries signing onto the pledge includes the US, EU, and Brazil, but crucially excludes China, India and Russia (the three other largest emitters after Brazil). Delivering on the Pledge would reduce warming by at least 0.2 degrees Celsius by 2050.

Like another agreement to halt and reverse deforestation, commentators have expressed support but also concern on how the pledge will be delivered – or if it will be at all. Global climate negotiations are no strangers to unfulfilled promises and vague commitments. Here are our key concerns;

Not ambitious enough

There has been much focus at COP26 on need to stay within 1.5°C, the pledge falls short on this. Global temperature has risen by 1.2 degrees above pre-industrial levels, and the IPCC projects us to hit 1.5 degrees at or before 2030. Cutting methane emissions by 40–45% (whereas pledge only commits to a 30% cut) by 2030 allows us to limit global warming to 1.5° C this century according to the IPCC.

Ignoring the biggest source of methane

The pledge focuses on the energy sector, which contributes 35% of methane emissions. A 75% cut in methane emissions from oil and gas operations by 2030 is possible with existing technology at near zero cost, the oil and gas industry is considered the “low-hanging fruit” of methane reduction. However, the single biggest source of global methane is largely ignored. Agriculture accounts for 40% of global methane emissions. Most agricultural methane emissions come from growing rice and raising ruminant animals (via enteric fermentation and manure). A large part of these emissions come from large-scale farms, particularly in the US where methane emissions nearly doubled between 1990 and 2019, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. These emissions will keep growing as the global population increases and developing countries get richer and consume more protein.

Industrial livestock producers are major culprits in methane emissions: direct methane emissions from livestock have caused a fifth of all global warming since the industrial revolution. It’s not difficult – technically speaking – to reduce these emissions. Simply farm far less methane-emitting livestock (mainly ruminants like cows and sheep) and ensure livestock that is farmed is reared in ways that minimise methane emissions and provide other benefits like soil carbon sequestration and nature conservation by using agro-ecological rearing methods.

Focusing on the wrong solutions

The pledge doesn’t even consider significantly changing our food system: instead, it talks about “climate-smart” technological fixes such as improved manure management systems, anaerobic digesters and new livestock feeds. The focus on anaerobic digestion, or biogas, as a solution to manage food waste and methane from manure, is a major climate concern. Public subsidies directed at anaerobic digestion risk incentivising expansion of the intensive livestock industry by making it cheaper for industrial farms to dispose of their waste.

Similarly, reducing food waste – another major source of methane – gets a mention, but it’s not clear whether this will be about channelling resources and regulation to get big companies who set the conditions that cause most waste to address this, or about spending lots of money on biogas digesters that tie us into long-term ‘waste disposal’ infrastructure, without addressing the source of the problem.

Likewise, preventing the manure and slurries from being produced in the first place, through reduced meat and dairy production and consumption in the UK would reduce emissions substantially more than the mitigation potential offered by Anaerobic Digestion, and also has the potential to free up vast quantities of land for tree planting and additional carbon sequestration leading to a 156% reduction in the UK’s agricultural emissions.

Reducing food waste, improving livestock management, and the adoption of healthy diets (vegetarian or with a lower meat and dairy content) could reduce methane emissions by 65–80 Mt/yr over the next few decades. This is significantly greater than the emissions reductions of 29–57 Mt/yr available from readily available targeted measures for oil and gas.

 The bottom line

 It is positive that methane is being focused on and if delivered the pledge will contribute towards the goal of remaining below 1.5 degrees. However, in failing to significantly address the methane emissions of our unsustainable food system the pledge falls short. We simply can’t achieve recommended methane emissions without tackling Big Livestock and ultimately creating a better food system.

Tijdens de Klimaattop COP26 deze week in Glasgow is het belangrijk dat Nederlandse supermarkten hun ambities tonen in hun strijd tegen klimaatverandering. In de communicatie benadrukken ze het reduceren van de CO2-uitstoot in de eigen winkels en hun transport, maar dit is slechts een klein deel van hun uitstoot. 95% van de emissies komt uit de productieketen. Een derde daarvan wordt veroorzaakt door de productie van vlees en zuivel. Albert Heijn en Lidl beginnen transparant te worden over hun vleesverkoop, maar geen enkele supermarkt heeft een plan om de vlees- en zuivel verkoop te verminderen. Dit concludeert campagneorganisatie Foodrise in een nieuw rapport.

Het rapport is mede gebaseerd op een peiling van IPSOS onder een representatieve steekproef van 994 stemgerechtigde Nederlanders. Vier op de tien jongeren zien een grotere rol voor de supermarkten om de vleesconsumptie te verminderen. Bijvoorbeeld door minder aanbiedingen van vlees en meer promotie van vleesvervangers. Aanhangers van GroenLinks, de Partij van de Dieren, en D66 verwachten ook meer leiderschap van supermarkten op dit thema. Verder zegt 18% van de  jongeren tot 35 jaar geen vlees te kopen, bijna twee keer zo hoog dan gemiddeld.

De 5 grootste retailers hebben met 80% marktaandeel een enorme invloed op het voedselsysteem in Nederland. Vorig jaar zagen de supermarkten hun omzet met 14% stijgen dankzij de Corona-maatregelen. Bijna de helft (45%) van de consumenten onder de 35 vindt dat supermarkten hun Corona-winst moeten herinvesteren in het aanbieden van meer plantaardige en duurzaam geproduceerde producten.

De Nederlandse supermarkten blijven te veel goedkoop vlees aanbieden wat wereldwijd zorgt voor meer dan de helft van de broeikasgasuitstoot gerelateerd aan voedsel. In Nederland is veeteelt ook de drijvende kracht achter de stikstofcrisis, en de groeiende uitstoot van methaan. Supermarkten moeten meer verantwoording nemen voor de klimaatimpact in hun hele keten door de verkoop van vlees en zuivel in 2030 te halveren, en meer gezonder en plantaardig voedsel aanbieden. Als ze dat niet doen, zullen ze hun klimaatambities niet kunnen waarmaken.

Het rapport analyseerde gegevens en toezeggingen van de vijf grote retailers en concludeert dat Albert Heijn, vanuit moederbedrijf  AholdDelhaize, als enige retailer, transparant is over de uitstoot van broeikasgassen in hun volledige toeleveringsketen, inclusief het deel veroorzaakt door dierlijke eiwitten en heeft zich verplicht tot een 15 % daling van de totale uitstoot van broeikasgassen in 2030.

Supermarkten beginnen te reageren. Albert Heijn zet zich in om in 2025 een balans van 50/50 in dierlijke/plantaardige eiwitten te bereiken en liet voor het eerst zien wat de huidige verhouding in eiwitverkoop is, namelijk 70% dierlijk en 30% plantaardig. Verder maakte Lidl bekend dat 25% van hun totale omzet betrekking heeft op vers vlees en zuivelproducten. Jumbo stelde een nieuwe doelstelling op om hun plantaardige alternatieven te verhogen van de huidige 4% naar 10% in 2025. Geen enkele grote supermarkt heeft tot nu toe specifieke doelen aangegeven om de verkoop van vlees en zuivel te reduceren. Het veel kleinere Ekoplaza loopt hierin voorop en heeft specifieke streefcijfers om de vleesverkoop in 2022 te verlagen.

Uit de in juni 2021 gepubliceerde Britse scorecard van Foodrise bleek dat geen van de 10 grootste supermarkten in het Verenigd Koninkrijk stappen zet om het vleesaanbod te verkleinen. Ze blijven vleesconsumptie stimuleren door reclames waarin gestunt wordt met lage prijzen. Ook in Nederland wordt er nog veel gestunt met vlees in de aanbieding zoals blijkt uit de jaarlijkse kiloknallers factsheet van Wakker Dier. In 2022 zal Foodrise een scorecard lanceren samen met partners uit andere EU-landen om supermarkten te beoordelen op hun toezeggingen, beleid en handelspraktijken om klimaatverandering en de overgang naar minder en beter vlees aan te pakken.

In het recente rapport van de Food Policy Coalition waaraan Foodrise heeft meegewerkt, wordt het belang van een gezonde en duurzame voedselomgeving benadrukt. Supermarkten moeten hun marketingmiddelen inzetten om hun klanten juist gezonde en duurzame plantaardige keuzes te laten maken. In plaats van de huidige fixatie op prijs, zouden supermarkten andere waarden zoals gezondheid van mens en dier, milieu, klimaat, eerlijk inkomen voor boeren en arbeiders veel meer centraal moeten zetten in hun communicatie naar de klant.

De Transitiecoalitie Voedsel (TCV), waar Foodrise aan deelneemt, pleit voor een ambitieuze ‘eiwittransitie’ van 60/40 naar 40/60 in dierlijke/plantaardige eiwitten te bereiken in 2030. Tijdens het ´Plant the Future´ diner vorige maand kwamen meer dan 100 organisaties en bedrijven samen, om te bespreken hoe plantaardig het nieuwe normaal kan worden. De politiek moet de eiwittransitie speerpunt te maken in het beleid gericht op voedsel, klimaat en gezondheid. Bedrijfsleven moet aangestuurd worden om aanbod en promotie van dierlijke producten aan te passen.

The True Animal Protein Price Coalition (TAPPC), actief deze week tijdens de CoP in Glasgow, promoot en milieuheffing op vlees. Volgens het PBL leidt dit tot een reductie van 2 Mton CO2 eq. per jaar, een kleine kolencentrale. Een ruime meerderheid van de bevolking ondersteunt een milieuheffing op vlees in het regeerakkoord, wat D66 en Christen Unie ook ondersteunen.

Een derde van de totale uitstoot van AholdDelhaize wordt geproduceerd door vlees en zuivel. Dit komt overeen met de jaarlijkse uitstoot door de verwarming van 6 miljoen woningen, driekwart van alle woningen in Nederland. Supermarkten moeten hun klimaatambities opschroeven en minder vlees gaan verkopen en meer groente, fruit, peulvruchten, noten en granen. Beter voor de gezondheid van onszelf en onze aarde. Juist tijdens deze Klimaattop COP26 in Glasgow is het belangrijk dat bedrijven het goede voorbeeld geven.

Lees het volledige rapport en de Ipsos peiling.

How our food is produced, what we eat and what we throw away are major climate issues. Even if all other sectors were immediately net zero from 2020, without action on food system emissions we would likely surpass the 1.5°C emissions limit by the middle of the century. Food isn’t on the official agenda at COP26, but it touches on virtually every aspect of the negotiations and surrounding discussions, from the effectiveness of a Global Methane Agreement, to the drive for more ambitious country-level commitments to bridge the ‘emissions gap’.

Find out where to find Foodrise’s staff and events at COP26.

9 November – 16.45 GMT

Side Event – No More Omissions: Addressing the ambition and scale of change required in global food systems (Multimedia Studio 2 – Blue Zone)

Food systems, especially meat, fish and feed, haven’t gotten the attention they should in climate COPs, despite huge GHG emissions. Foodrise’s Executive Director Carina Millstone will present on this panel which encompasses perspectives from health, culture and science and bold policy and financing recommendations to forestall further catastrophic emissions and omissions. Register here. 

11 November – 10.00 GMT

Young seeds for your thoughts (COP26 Food and Climate Zone, Salvation Army Glasgow, 1 Houldsworth Street, G3 8ED)

A group of young people present a perspective on how to move towards a just and regenerative food system, based on their research over the course of a 6 month participatory action research project, which centres ordinary people rather than “experts” in the food sector. Sign up here.

To attend virtually – sign up here.

12 November – 10.00 GMT

Green gas without the hot air (COP26 Food and Climate Zone, Salvation Army Glasgow, 1 Houldsworth Street, G3 8ED)

Anaerobic Digestion (AD) involves turning food waste, manures or crops into “green gas”. But is AD an environmental silver bullet? Foodrise uncover how AD policies can go seriously wrong – incentivising factory farming and food waste, and diverting land from nature and feeding people.

Join us for a discussion on AD’s limitations and how to fix our broken food system. Sign up here.

To attend virtually – sign up here.

The government has published its strategy for how it plans to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The strategy focuses on electric vehicles, decarbonising heat and buildings as well as major spending on nuclear energy and support for energy from hydrogen, as well as a funding boost to spending on peat restoration and woodland creation.

It’s a strategy that sees technology and industrial transformations as the answer to the climate crisis and spends accordingly. But in common with many of the government’s pronouncements on a green future, it forgets people and the huge changes to a greener, healthier, fairer society which are possible if government works in partnership with people on the ground. This is particularly clear when it comes to food and the system which produces our daily meals: research shows that, globally, without addressing food systems, even if every other sector of the economy decarbonised, we cannot meet climate goals to remain below 1.5°C of warming.

We see three key specific food and climate needs – and potential wins – that this strategy doesn’t meet.

1.  Reducing meat consumption

 The strategy has nothing about dietary change and reduced meat consumption. It acknowledges that “ruminant livestock are the leading cause of farm emissions” but plans to reduce these emissions via improved livestock practices such as the still emerging technology of feed additives. While regenerative livestock management will lead to improved biodiversity outcomes and increased carbon in soils, the evidence is consistently showing that technology and management practices will not be enough to curb the total greenhouse gas emissions from the livestock sector – we need reductions in production (and consumption) as well. The strategy makes no mention of what kind of management practices it intends to support (industrial and intensive livestock production in the UK is rising at an alarming rate) and if absolute greenhouse gas emissions from livestock will also be tackled. The National Food Strategy recently recommended the government to help us cut down on our total meat consumption while the government’s own independent Climate Change Committee (CCC) recommends reduced meat consumption as the low hanging fruit in reducing the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions – a recommendation the government has, so far, consistently chosen to ignore.

2. Halving food waste

While the strategy has a lot of fanfare around food waste, what the detail suggests is that food waste policy – never very ambitious – has been downgraded. A move to bring forward separate food waste collections for all households by 2025 is a whole two years later than a previous target to have these fully rolled out by 2023. Despite promises since 2018 of a consultation on new regulation to require business transparency and targets on food waste, the only business action on food waste mentioned in the strategy is voluntary. And it’s hugely dispiriting that the government appears to be focusing on sending food waste to AD rather than helping prevent food waste in the first place. We already know that preventing food waste saves 9 times more greenhouse gas emissions than sending it to Anaerobic Digestion, or 40 times if you plant trees on the spared farmland that would have been used to grow the food. Using land to grow food to feed digesters, not people, is terrible climate arithmetic.

3. Focus on offsetting via unproven technologies

Talking of land use takes us onto another deeply worrying aspect of this strategy: it’s focus on offsetting via unproven technologies like Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS), instead of the urgent need to directly decarbonise our food system. In a week when financial institutions are getting wise about shifty sustainability credentials of BECCS, the Net Zero Strategy is still touting the supposed negative emissions of energy from biomass. What we need is reassurance that there will be genuine emissions reductions from the agriculture sector via an increase in nutritious food production from small-scale regenerative farms alongside a reduction in demand for high carbon (meat, dairy, eggs) or low nutrition foods (sugar and ingredients for processed foods). Instead, the strategy says that food mitigation measures are now all to be covered in the Food Strategy – with no legal teeth – unlike the Net Zero strategy which is pursuant to the Climate Change Act and so will have some enforceability.

And these are only three of the most glaring issues we see – other omissions include action on methane, which garners two mentions in the entire strategy, despite being a major win for preventing short-term warming. It is particularly regrettable that the government is so unwilling to engage with the issue of sustainable food at a time when the EU looks set to see off a particularly determined industry lobbying effort to try to prevent key aspects of the Farm to Fork strategy – including on sustainable diets, and on achieving EU green targets through national agricultural policy – from coming into law. The UK has consistently ignored the benefits of climate-sensitive food policy, but in doing so, we do more than miss a decarbonisation trick – we miss opportunities to make food better for us, for nature and for the climate.

Christina O’Sullivan, Campaign & Communications Manager

When reflecting on my food heroes, many amazing cooks, activists, and food writers came to mind. However ultimately, I realised that for me, my food hero is my mom. She is an amazing cook and has an incredible instinct for food and flavour that I am forever grateful to have learned from her. When my friend Ankita rings her mom in India for a recipe she is told ‘Use your own judgement’ like my mom’s similar refrain ‘You know yourself Christina’. Recipes are a malleable concept in our kitchen which leads to wonderful meals and sometimes epic failures and I wouldn’t have it any other way. What I have noticed is that my mom does not always consider herself particularly skilled – cooking is just something she does. Our food system is made up of and inherently dependent on people who are often classed as ‘unskilled’. The Covid19 pandemic has forced us to consider what a ‘key worker’ is. Why did it take a global pandemic to see the hands that feed us as essential? The mass outbreaks of Covid19 in meat factories has highlighted that any movement towards a better food system that doesn’t incorporate worker’s rights will ultimately fail. Thank you to all the food heroes working across the food system to get food on our plates, together we can create a just and sustainable food system for everyone.

Helena Appleton, the Alchemic Kitchen

My food hero is Charles Dowding. A champion of no dig organic food production. His methods of food production echo the need for shorter supply chains, more nutritious produce and ecologically sound practices. In a very close second place, I have to say Andrea Camilleri whose books and films have inspired me to master the art of homemade pasta and I can finally make arancini to be proud of.

Martin Bowman, Policy & Campaigns Manager

Jack Monroe is my food hero. An inspirational food poverty campaigner who has done so much to challenge cruel government policies that have forced people to rely on food banks and written delicious recipes which are affordable for people cooking on a budget. I saw them giving moving testimony about how they were driven to rely on food banks at a government inquiry – and have endless admiration for their courage.