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Off-shore aquaculture using existing technologies could provide the entire world's seafood needs using a very small percentage of the global ocean area, although economic, environmental, and social constraints still exist:
Mapping the global potential for marine aquaculture (open, DOI: 10.1038/s41559-017-0257-9) (DX)
Here, we map the biological production potential for marine aquaculture across the globe using an innovative approach that draws from physiology, allometry and growth theory. Even after applying substantial constraints based on existing ocean uses and limitations, we find vast areas in nearly every coastal country that are suitable for aquaculture. The development potential far exceeds the space required to meet foreseeable seafood demand; indeed, the current total landings of all wild-capture fisheries could be produced using less than 0.015% of the global ocean area. This analysis demonstrates that suitable space is unlikely to limit marine aquaculture development and highlights the role that other factors, such as economics and governance, play in shaping growth trajectories. We suggest that the vast amount of space suitable for marine aquaculture presents an opportunity for countries to develop aquaculture in a way that aligns with their economic, environmental and social objectives.
[...] We found that over 11,400,000 km2 are potentially suitable for fish and over 1,500,000 km2 could be developed for bivalves. Both fish and bivalve aquaculture showed expansive potential across the globe, including both tropical and temperate countries (Figs. 1 and 2 and Supplementary Table 3). However, as would be predicted by metabolic theory, many of the areas with the highest GPI were located in warm, tropical regions. The total potential production is considerable: if all areas designated as suitable in this analysis were developed (assuming no further economic, environmental or social constraints), we estimate that approximately 15 billion tonnes of finfish could be grown every year—over 100 times the current global seafood consumption.
Found at NextBigFuture.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday August 17 2017, @12:33AM (2 children)
Mono Cultures worked so well on land - lets poison the ocean too.
A very small portion of fish stock is already raised this way, and it causes a fair bit of trouble with wild stocks just about everywhere it is tried.
Diseases sweep through concentrated populations and spread into the wild stocks. Entire estuaries are over burdened with pens and cages and boatloads of fish poop.
Hatcheries are bad enough in this regard, but they can (and are) emptied and cleaned yearly.
What cleans the bays and estuaries full penned or fenced rearing areas?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday August 17 2017, @01:06AM
The death of fish stock and the environ, the bankruptcy of the "farmer", followed by a sufficient amount of time for the pens to rust away.
That is, unless the people never learn for their (predecessors) mistakes and try again, in which case it will take much longer. (grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 17 2017, @03:45AM
Had to double-check the username. When did you become an environmentalist?
Are you also interested in wolf conservation? I hope so! I've always loved wolves! ♥ Nobody in my family has been a farmer since my grandparents, though, and we've never had wolves around here anyway.