Ending world hunger is an important goal of the United Nations SDG-2, which aims to ensure that everyone has access to sufficient nutritious food by 2030. Marine food sources are still only marginally involved in this, especially the organisms low in the food chain that offer perspective for more sustainable food production. This project will therefore focus on the gap in sustainable aquaculture and use of marine food sources.
Over characterized by strong environmental gradients from land to sea requiring the exploitation of marine coastal areas offer several opportunities to be better utilized. These are zoned approach and use of an integrated landscape perspective. We will investigate and help develop sustainable cultivation of seaweed, shrimp and fish in mono- or polycultures from a landscape perspective along an environmental gradient of a tropical coast. Based on previous research, and good familiarity with the different cultivation systems, we choose Indonesia as a case for integration at landscape level. From this landscape-integrated case we develop new insights into the potential contribution of sustainably cultivated marine food sources to global food security and in particular in Low and Middle Income Countries (LMIC).
Due to food conversion losses, vulnerability to diseases, habitat loss and polluted wastewater, some cultivation systems in modern aquaculture based on farmed carnivorous and omnivorous fish and shellfish have not been sustainable in a number of areas. Among other things, the cultivation of seaweed offers many prospects, although mainly the sustainability that offers a great chance to restore the balance between economy and ecology in areas where overexploitation of natural systems is ongoing, or has already led to great damage. Sustainability will be achieved through combined aquaculture (IMTA: Integrated Multi-trophic Aquaculture). By combining fish, shrimp and seaweed in cultures, the impact on the climate and environment is reduced and the income of the farmer is usually higher. This is partly because more can be produced on the same surface area, less maintenance is required for the systems, which results in lower labor costs, but also less animal feed and disease control, which are usually major cost items in intensive aquaculture.
In the coming two years, the work will build on the already acquired expertise of the systems in Indonesia, but also make a translation to the global to sustainable food production. In this translation, the systems in Indonesia will form the model system on which further work can be done.