Fisheries and Oceans Canada
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New Fish Feed Goes Green
The Canadian freshwater aquaculture industry is benefiting from innovative scientific research and development collaboration. Through on-the-farm trials, new high-performance feeds for farmed trout have been developed providing the industry with an exciting 'green' edge. These new feeds significantly improve fish growth and reduce the environmental 'footprint' of the fish farm operation. DFO spearheaded this project, leveraged academic and industry participation across four provinces, and delivered science-based results the industry can apply at a commercial scale. The collaboration and skill of participants from across the country resulted in a win-win, for farmers and the environment. This is a true Canadian success story.
The Industry
Wild West Steelhead cage system
on Lake Diefenbaker
The Canadian freshwater aquaculture industry is a young, vibrant industry. Considering Canada's freshwater resource base and other strategic advantages, such as an excellent transportation system, proximity to the US market, highly skilled labour force, and increasing consumer demand for fresh fish and seafood, the current level of production does not match up with the potential that exists for freshwater aquaculture development in Canada. The industry is poised for growth.
Phosphorous is a naturally occurring element in fresh water that is a necessary nutrient for many organisms.
Freshwater environments have a large capacity to absorb nutrients from external sources, but sometimes that balance can be disrupted. An excess of phosphorous can foster a chain effect that can cause low-oxygen conditions.
Phosphorous is added to fish feeds because fish need it to grow. Phosphorous can enter a freshwater ecosystem as a by-product of digested and/or unused feed waste.
Therefore, advances in fish feed with low phosphorous content can help freshwater aquaculture operators meet their goal of mitigating environmental effects while keeping the cost of production as low as possible.
Recognizing there is vision and strength in numbers, industry, government (including DFO) and academic partners from across Canada formed what is now referred to as the Interprovincial Partnership for Sustainable Freshwater Aquaculture (IPSFAD), a not-for-profit organization to promote coordinated efforts in applied research, development and commercialization to advance the sector. The members of IPSFAD decided that any expansion of the Canadian freshwater aquaculture industry is dependent upon the knowledge, technologies and practices to address and resolve challenges facing the sector, such as concerns regarding the environmental sustainability of aquaculture operations. The focus began with fish nutrition.
Why Fish Nutrition
Farmed fish are fed small, nutrient-dense, dry pellets. Feed is developed to meet the nutritional requirements of healthy growing fish and contain a variety of ingredients (protein, oil, vegetable proteins and cereals). Feed is the most significant cost in operating a fish farm, comprising about 40% of the operating budget. Therefore, farmers are careful not to waste food and keep the feed conversion ratios (the amount of feed required to produce fish) as low as possible.
In 2004, Fisheries and Oceans Canada funded a three-year multi-partner research pilot through the department's Aquaculture Collaborative Research and Development Program to study Canadian farmed trout fed with a high energy, low-phosphorous feed developed by the Danish aquaculture industry. Low-phosphorous and high performance feeds were not yet available in Canada.
The study examined if the feed had a better food conversion ratio and reduced environmental impact (particularly phosphorus waste) than fish fed with feed traditionally used by Canadian fish growers. Newly formulated high-performance feeds developed by Canadian feed companies were also added to the trial study to examine their performance. Farmers involved with the trial carefully watched the bottom-line to see if the increased cost of the higher performance feed was compensated for by gains in production and savings from indirect costs.
Small-scale feed trials were held under controlled laboratory conditions at Laval University and the University of Guelph, and at eight larger-scale commercial fish farms under normal conditions throughout Quebec, Ontario, Saskatchewan and Alberta.
The Results
Both the Danish and the newly formulated Canadian feeds performed beyond expectations. Based on these trials, all the partners are confident in their recommendation to use the Canadian high performance feeds as they saw the beneficial results first hand.
DFO's leadership and investment throughout the feed trial studies contributed to environmentally-friendly production technologies and demonstrated that collaborative scientific research can enable a competitive, sustainable aquaculture industry in Canada.
High performance feeds will help freshwater aquaculture operators achieve their goal of reducing environmental effects while keeping the cost of production as competitive as possible.
Although new Canadian feeds are higher in price, the improved feed conversion ratio resulted in an overall reduced cost of feeding fish. Furthermore, there are significant environmental benefits to feeding new Canadian-manufactured, low-phosphorous feeds as they reduced overall phosphorous output by 36% compared to traditional domestic trout feeds. These new feeds have definitely raised the bar and should be the industry standard across Canada in the near future.
DFO's leadership and investment throughout the feed trial studies have contributed to environmentally-friendly production technologies and demonstrated that collaborative scientific research can enable a competitive aquaculture industry in Canada.
