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Can aquaculture overcome its sustainability challenges?

Increasing the amount of protein produced through aquaculture is essential to feed a growing global population. But scientists want to ensure the industry grows sustainably.
  1. Sarah DeWeerdt

    1. Sarah DeWeerdt is a freelance writer in Seattle covering biology, medicine and the environment.

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Two farmers wearing straw hats bend over their seaweed crop

Seaweed farmers in Tanzania tend to their crops. Not only is seaweed a nutritious food, but cultivating it can help to ease ocean acidification. Credit: Tommy Trenchard/Panos Pictures

On a summer morning in 2019, Andy Suhrbier pilots a small aluminium boat out to a mussel raft in a quiet cove on the eastern shore of Puget Sound in Washington State. As the boat approaches, a mother seal and her pup resting on the raft slip into the water. Suhrbier climbs from his boat onto the raft; the only sign of life is a vague smell.

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Nature 588, S60-S62 (2020)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-03446-3

This article is part of Nature Outlook: Sustainable nutrition, an editorially independent supplement produced with the financial support of third parties. About this content.

Updates & Corrections

  • Correction 18 December 2020: This article gave the wrong campus location for Alecia Bellgrove, who is at Deakin University in Warrnambool. Nesar Ahmed is at the university’s Melbourne campus. The article has been updated to reflect this

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