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Fish feed has always been the highest operational cost to a farmer, and depending on the species, it can range anywhere from 50-70% of the total of the production cost to a farmer, meaning that from all the expenses a farmer needs to analyze, feed is always the number 1 priority. And since December of 2021, we’ve seen the commodity price of fishmeal climb steadily almost 30% from $1.4k / metric ton to the last reported price of $1.8k metric ton. This is the result of a few different factors.

High protein content, excellent amino acid profile, absence of anti-nutritional factors (ANFs), high digestibility and good palatability of fishmeal (FM), make it a major source of protein in aquaculture. Naturally derived FM is at risk due to an increase in its demand, unsustainable practices, and price. Thus, there is an urgent need to find affordable and suitable protein sources to replace FM. Plant protein sources are suitable due to their widespread availability and low cost. However, they contained certain ANFs, deficiency of some amino acids, low nutrient bioavailability and poor digestibility due to presence of starch and fiber. These unfavourable characteristics make them less suitable for feed as compared to FM. Thus, these potential challenges and limitations associated with various plant proteins have to be overcome by using different methods, i.e. enzymatic pretreatments, solvent extraction, heat treatments and fermentation, that are discussed briefly in this review. This review assessed the impacts of plant products on growth performance, body composition, flesh quality, changes in metabolic activities and immune response of fishes. To minimize the negative effects and to enhance nutritional value of plant products, beneficial functional additives such as citric acid, phytase and probiotics could be incorporated into the plant-based FM. Interestingly, these additives improve growth of fishes by increasing digestibility and nutrient utilization of plant based feeds. Overall, this review demonstrated that the substitution of fishmeal by plant protein sources is a plausible, technically-viable and practical option for sustainable aquaculture feed production.

The cancellation of the first Peruvian anchovy season and the current high prices of fishmeal and fish oil brought new challenges to the aquafeed industry. In this context, what are the alternatives?

Aquaculture industry is one of the world’s fastest and largest growing food producing sector. Most importantly, the usage of fish meal in aquaculture has been replaced with alternate protein sources due to their production cost, demand of raw materials and various environmental issues. The insect black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens) larval (BSFL) meal is being recognized as a feed ingredient in aquafeeds for their protein rich content similar to fish meal (FM). BSFL meal has been utilized as a fish meal or soy meal substitution in aquaculture to improve the nutrition. The culture of H. illucens larvae can be achieved using various biodegradable wastes and converted into a valuable biomass. In addition, the proximate analysis of H. illucens has been analyzed for its multifaceted role in poultry, cattle feed preparation and human consumption. The effectiveness of BSFL diet was analyzed for final body weight (FBW), specific growth rate (SGR), feed conversion ratio (FCR), feed intake (FI), feed efficiency (FE) and survival (SUR) of different fish and shrimp used as an experimental models with FM as the control diet. However, there is no comprehensive review available on the BSFL as an alternate protein source in aquaculture till date. Hence, the present review aimed to evaluate the feasible role of BSFL in feed, its sustainable production and challenges of BSFL meal in aquaculture sector along with their merits and demerits.