The global competition for wild fish resources between livestock and aquaculture

Abstract

Aquaculture satisfies a growing global demand for fish but also consumes an increasing share of the world’s wild fish resources. This has led to a concern that increased aquaculture production poses a threat to the sustainability of capture fisheries. We use a shrinkage estimator to estimate fishmeal demand from coun-tries with different make-up of meat and farmed salmon production. Although we are not able to identify structural differences between these sectors, the empirical results show that fishmeal demand is price inelastic. Technological change, however, is reducing fishmeal usage in feeds, suggesting that strong demand pressure on pelagic fish resources targeted for fishmeal is a temporary phenomenon.