Brett Glencross
Technical Director
IFFO (The Marine Ingredients Organisation)
UK
Brett is the Technical Director of IFFO (The Marine Ingredients Organisation). Prior to this he was the Professor of Nutrition at the Institute of Aquaculture at the University of Stirling in Scotland. Over the past 30 years he has worked across various domains with experience in academia, government, foreign-aid and industrial roles in the Asia-Pacific, LATAM, Middle East, and Europe.
He is the former Chair of the Scientific Committee of the International Society for Fish Nutrition as well as previously being a director of the Asia-Pacific Chapter of the World Aquaculture Society. Brett has Honours and Masters’ Degrees in Biochemistry from the University of Western Australia, and a PhD in Animal Nutrition from the University of Queensland.
State of Feed Commodities & Aquafeed
Abstract
We have seen that despite 30+ years of work to replace marine ingredients; they remain as integral to the aquafeed sector as ever. They have become a strategic resource used to allow us to rely on other ingredients to provide the bulk nutrients, with their use increasingly focused on critical stages and higher-value species. We have also seen a circularity transition to increasing reliance on by-product streams to produce marine ingredients. We now have more than 50% of global fish oil, and close to 40% of global fishmeal supplies produced from by-products. As demand for aquafeed grows, we will see by-products becoming increasingly dominant as the resource base.
As aquaculture production keeps growing it is important to consider what are our most sustainable options to feed this growth? Much of that story hinges on our definition of “sustainability”. And more importantly, how we measure that. Although marine ingredients have played a critical role in supporting this growth by being strategic ingredients, feeds have notably changed over the past 30 years. Grains now form the basis of most feeds, and the grain sector uses more of that resource for animal feeds, both in total volume and a proportion of production, than what we use from fish production. And this will (and should) continue into the future. Grains represent our largest feed resource that we can reliably produce. There is no other realistic option at this scale. We have also seen as aquaculture has grown that it has not resulted in increased fishing for feed. That myth is now busted!
Modern assessment of sustainability now requires that we measure this objectively using life cycle assessment (LCA). A series of independent frameworks (e.g., FAO, ISO, PEFCR and GFLI) governing how we use LCA for sustainability and the specific impacts involved has been established. Using these frameworks the marine ingredients industry has engaged globally with groups like the GFLI to develop primary datasets based on industry production. Progress in this LCA assessment has revealed that marine ingredients have among the better sustainability credentials of all protein and lipid ingredients. We are beginning to see that they are no longer just the nutritional benchmark but now also the sustainability benchmark.
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