Go Blue! Seafood Sustainability

The  world availability of freshwater will be crucial for aquaculture to fulfill its promise to produce an additional 40 million tons of seafood that we will need by the year 2030

Currently 62% of our farmed seafood comes from freshwater and 8% from a mix of salt and freshwater (brackish water).  Lumping these together shows that 70% of our worldwide aquaculture production is dependent upon freshwater.

Over the past several years, the growth in freshwater aquaculture has been increasing at a faster rate than that of marine (salt-water) aquaculture production systems.

Critical points to ponder going forward:

• With an additional billion of us coming in 2030, will there be less freshwater available for aquaculture? 
• Will climate change make less or more freshwater available?
• Will groundwater and watershed resources be properly utilized and sustained for the next billion of us coming by the year 2030?

Currently less than 0.007% of Earth’s water is freshwater that we can utilize!  This shows how precious and limited it is for providing for our health, industry, agriculture, and aquaculture.

There is an ever-increasing  global issue of freshwater availability and an example close to home is California’s recently passed legislation to confront the state’s water crisis.

Freshwater will soon become the new “gold” of the 21^st century as the world confronts the constraints of a dwindling supply compared to a growing demand.

Aquaculture’s future success to feed another billion of us by the year 2030 is inextricably bound to the availability of freshwater.

Please let us know your thoughts on this and any other issues affecting our seafood industry.

Sincerely, Dave Glaubke…………Sea Port’s Director of Sustainability Initiatives