Speed Presentation 2024 Australian Marine Sciences Association Annual Meeting combined with NZMSS

Integrating fed aquaculture into GLOBIOM to account for growing global feed resource competition (#531)

Julia L Blanchard 1 2 , Richard S Cottrell 1 2 , Petr Havlik 3 , David Leclère 3 , Amanda Palazzo 3 , Sowdamini Sesha Prasad 1 3 , Scott Spillas 4
  1. Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania, Hobart, TAS, Australia
  2. Centre for Marine Socioecology, University of Tasmania, Hobart, TAS, Australia
  3. International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria
  4. Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Castray Esplanade, Hobart, TAS, Australia

By 2050, the world’s population is projected to reach 9.7 billion and food demand is expected to increase by 59-102%. Rising population and growing consumer affluence has increased demand for animal-based foods, evident by tripling of livestock production since the 1960s. Meeting the demand for animal products is a significant sustainability challenge due to the global reliance on shared feed resources for farming. Inefficient management of these shared dependencies can result in competition and shortages among food sectors. Therefore, integrated assessment models are crucial for comprehending sustainable resource management in food sectors. While agriculture and livestock are well represented in these models, fisheries and aquaculture are underrepresented. As the demand for aquaculture grows, this underrepresentation is problematic. Aquaculture now increasingly relies on terrestrial ingredients, thereby directly competing with other food production sectors for feed resources. The competition for feed resource demands and impacts between different food production systems has not yet been examined holistically- like in a GLOBIOM model. We propose to explore this by incorporating an organismal digestibility model for mariculture that draws on feed resources and projects waste similar to the existing RUMINANT model. This will contribute towards integrative land-to-sea use change models, for assessing global impacts, scenarios, and solutions for sustainable food and ecosystems.