Fish Farming

We are eating more fish than ever. Yet three quarters of the world’s fish stocks are either fully exploited, over exploited, depleted or recovering from depletion. As the amount of fish supplied by these wild stocks has stagnated, aquaculture - the farming of fish and other seafood - has grown rapidly. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), estimates 43% of seafood consumed worldwide each year now comes from farms.

In the same way that humans changed from hunter-gathering to farming on the land, the same thing is now happening in the sea. Fish or shellfish (particularly oily fish) is an essential part of the diet, and awareness of its diverse health benefits continues to grow. They supply unique long-chain highly unsaturated omega-3 fatty acids. These are not found in foods grown on land and our bodies cannot them in any useful quantities.

Almost everything we eat is now farmed, and in the same way that we apply organic principles to agriculture, horticulture and livestock farming, it is important that these organic principles of health, ecology, fairness and care are applied to fish and shellfish farming. The Soil Association was one of the first organisations to become actively involved in the development of organic aquaculture standards. We established a unique development programme to look at all the issues surrounding fish farming.

The Soil Association took a very cautious approach and held the standards in an internal ‘interim’ status for eight years while all aspects of fish farming were examined. However in July 2006 after visiting organic fish farms in Shetland and Orkney, the governing Council gave their unanimous backing to the full adoption of our organic aquaculture standards.

More recently, the Soil Association’s organic fish farming standards scored 90%, and took top place in a World Wildlife Fund (WWF) study of 24 international aquaculture certification schemes in December 2007. The study analysed existing certification programmes against criteria that WWF believes are important to achieve sustainability and credibility in the aquaculture sector. Four key issues were examined: the environment, social issues, animal welfare, and the standard setting and certification process. The study is available from the WWF website

The Soil Association now has organic standards for salmon, trout, char, shrimp, carp and bivalve shellfish.

In this section:

» Organic salmon
» Organic trout
» Organic shellfish
» Organic carp
» Organic aquaculture feeds
» Natural antioxidants
» Fish pigmentation
» Environmental impact and nutrient recycling
» Antifoulants
» Escapes
» Sea lice



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This document is not to be used by Soil Association licensees as a substitute for the Soil Association organic standards. The standards are available to buy for £30. To order a copy please call 0117 914 2406, or email goorganic@soilassociation.org.