Joint Statement: “FAO and its members must address the destructive effects of industrial feedlot aquaculture”

9 de junio de 2025

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JOINT DECLARATION

13 civil society organizations and small-scale fisheries organizations (CSOs and IPs) sign a joint declaration during the 13th Session of the FAO Sub-Committee on Aquaculture, a consultation and discussion forum that advises the Committee on Fisheries (COFI) on technical and policy issues relating to aquaculture.

The signatories of this declaration call on FAO members to address the destructive effects of industrial aquaculture in feedlots.

Aquaculture is presented by the FAO as a production system capable of mitigating the decline in wild fish catches while continuing to feed the world’s growing population. However, the term “aquaculture” encompasses different production models, with different social and environmental costs and benefits. Some systems can be relatively environmentally benign when practiced at an appropriate scale, such as small-scale, non-intensive family or community fish farming and the extensive culture of seaweed, mussels, clams, and oysters, while others—notably intensive industrial aquaculture in feedlots—have significant adverse environmental and social impacts on coastal ecosystems and the communities that depend on them for their livelihoods worldwide.

Social, environmental and animal welfare impacts

Around the world, the industrial model of feedlot aquaculture is displacing small-scale coastal fisheries, competing for space on land and in waters traditionally used for shipping and fishing, threatening their survival through the acquisition and privatization of coastal commons, as well as environmental degradation and pollution from farm waste.

The environmental impacts of this production model include eutrophication, which leads to an increase in harmful algal blooms (including red tides), a negative impact on seagrass meadows and other essential habitats due to the accumulation of organic matter around farms; massive fish escapes into the wild and fish deaths, the use of harmful chemicals, including pesticides, carcinogens and antibiotics, which pollute water, create dead zones on the seabed under farms and pose risks to human health.

Intensive aquaculture can also be detrimental to animal welfare due to the lack of regulations to enforce good practices during transport, breeding, and slaughter. Fish, as animals, are recognized as sentient beings, and protected by various conventions, including the draft UNCAHP and the provisions of Article 13 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU. However, more than 133 billion farmed fish endure great suffering in fish farms and are killed using inhumane methods every year.

Attempts to breed new sentient carnivorous species such as cephalopods or bluefin tuna, for which it might be unable to meet high standards of welfare, and whose livestock systems are detrimental to the environment, local livelihoods and biodiversity, are of particular concern.

Fattening farmed fish with wild fish?

Furthermore, if aquaculture is supposed to mitigate the decline in wild fish catches while continuing to feed the planet’s growing population, the intensive fish fattening model is nonsensical. Farmed species such as salmon, sea bass, shrimp, and prawns require large amounts of fishmeal and fish oil from wild fish in their feed.

This situation in turn affects artisanal fishing communities, particularly in West Africa, in the Baltic Sea and many other places, whose livelihoods and food security are threatened by the depletion of wild fish stocks to produce fish feed.: Overfishing of small pelagics such as sardinella, sardines and mackerel for fishmeal and fish oil used to produce animal feed for industrial fish farms worldwide is jeopardizing the prospects of the men and women who depend on small-scale fisheries throughout the value chain.

Intensive industrial feedlot aquaculture for consumption in wealthier countries is taking fish and livelihoods away from local communities, particularly in low-income countries. Aquaculture in Europe and Asia particularly sources fish feed from West Africa: more than half a million tonnes of pelagic fish that could feed more than 33 million people in the West African region are instead extracted from the ocean and reduced to fishmeal and fish oil to feed farmed fish and livestock.

Conclusion

FAO’s current aquaculture strategy fails to address the social and environmental challenges posed by the sector and does not clearly define what constitutes «sustainable» aquaculture. This indiscriminate support for all forms of aquaculture is neither consistent nor compatible with FAO’s policy objectives of building sustainable food systems that are productive, resilient, and equitable.

We call on FAO and its members to adopt a coherent approach to the governance of sustainable “blue food” systems that aligns with an ecosystem-based approach, animal welfare, and social equity. FAO must stop encouraging mass seafood production through industrial feedlot aquaculture without regard for the environment, local communities, or animal welfare, and place small-scale, low-impact aquaculture, fish workers, small-scale fish producers, processors, and traders at the heart of its food policy.