36. Michael L. Weber, "So You Say You Want a Blue Revolution? Fish Farming, for Better and Worse," Amicus Journal, 39-42 (Fall 1996).
This article discusses the increase in fish farming -- aquaculture -- which is being characterized as the "blue revolution," in line with the "green revolution" which enormously increased agricultural yields. Aquaculture provides an answer to the declines in wild fish and shellfish catches from a peak in the late 1980s (as described by Peter Weber in Worldwatch paper 166, reviewed on p. 34 of our Fall 1994 issue). More than one billion people depend upon fish as their principal source of animal protein and billions more rely on fish as an important part of their diet.
The article provides both impressive statistics and a discussion of some of the current features of aquaculture. Among the features are monoculture, decrease and pollution of wetlands, and use of human and animal wastes. Among the statistics are increased production of salmon from 23 million pounds to 540 million, increased farm production of shrimp from 108 million pounds in 1980 to nearly 1.5 billion in 1994, and the production of 56 billion pounds of nearly 200 cultivated species of fish and shellfish in 1994. A downside is that fish that escape their ponds can infect wild varieties with diseases. Moreover, Science for 23 August 1996 reports that a bacterium, Streptococcus iniae, which has caused outbreaks of meningitis and encephalitis in fish populations in Texas and Israel, appears to have jumped into humans. Six people in Ontario were apparently infected while cleaning fish. One developed miningitis and transient arthritis; the others came down with skin or blood infections.
We may be confronted with the emergence of a new human pathogen from a source which is a booming industry and a promising source of food supplies. Aquaculture may make up the deficit in the pelagic fish catch -- but at a price?
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