Substitutability of Fishmeal in Diets for Salmon: An Optimisation by Simulation Approach

The world’s output of farmed fish has grown steadily over the past two decades or so. Most notably in the UK, since the mid 1980’s, a rapid increase in farmed salmon production has taken place. Given that many of the world’s oceans are overfished, many see aquaculture as a method of feeding the world's growing population. However, the production of salmon relies heavily on marine raw materials as inputs in compound feed. Consequently, the demand for fishmeal is, therefore, increasing, although the production of fishmeal has remained relatively stable over the past decade or so suggesting that fishmeal has reached a production limit, with most industrial fisheries classified as fully or over exploited. Therefore, given the stagnant production from industrial fisheries and the rapid increase in aquaculture production, fishmeal can pose a biological constraint on production and thus aquacultures contribution to world supplies. In this study, the economic feasibility of substituting fishmeal in diets for salmon was analysed through an optimisation by simulation approach using @Risk to derive range of combinations stochastically. The results indicate that there are cost combinations of alternative ingredients that can substitute fishmeal producing market size salmon for a similar price to traditional fishmeal diets