"In this Nebraska town, superpowered algae is the latest cash crop"
A new plant will make algae designed to feed farmed salmon, so we can stop overfishing the small fish we feed them now.
The issue of using fish like menhaden is one of the knocks on farmed salmon mentioned in Sunday'sBy now most eaters recognize the benefits of adding salmon to their diets. It’s a tasty, lean fish that’s rich in protein and omega-3 fatty acids. It’s also readily available: About 70% of the booming $175-billion global aquaculture industry is focused on salmon production.What’s less clear is the cost of our collective appetite. Farmed salmon fish rely on fish oil supplements to maintain the fatty acid levels that makes it an appealing dish. But those levels have been dropping in recent years because the fish oil—derived from smaller fish like menhaden—has become harder to source as our seas become more and more overfished.
That’s sparked a race for cost-efficient ways to sustainably source the supplement from another source: algae. A landlocked operation far from the ocean (in Blair, Nebraska), that opens this week will produce on an industrial scale a patented marine algal strain that’s rich in EPA and DHA, essential fatty acids that your body can’t make so it has to source through food (like salmon). Together, they’ve been shown to benefit heart, brain, and eye health.
The concept is being pioneered by Veramaris, a joint venture from two European companies: the Dutch life sciences company Royal DSM and German Chemical company Evonik, which produces an highly concentrated algal oil. The factory expects to offset the harvest of roughly 2.1 million metric tons of small fish for use as salmon food per year, roughly 15% of what the salmon aquaculture industry uses....MUCH MORE
"Salmon surge helps Norway shatter seafood record".
For more on menhaden, a most remarkable resource, we have:
Munnawhatteaug: The Fish That Built America
