{"id":5567,"date":"2026-01-27T13:03:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T18:03:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/?p=5567"},"modified":"2026-01-27T13:14:26","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T18:14:26","slug":"farm-forward-partners-with-the-aquaculture-accountability-project-to-launch-campaign-on-the-myth-of-sustainable-aquaculture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/news\/farm-forward-partners-with-the-aquaculture-accountability-project-to-launch-campaign-on-the-myth-of-sustainable-aquaculture\/","title":{"rendered":"Farm Forward Partners with the Aquaculture Accountability Project to Launch Campaign on the Myth of \u201cSustainable\u201d Aquaculture"},"content":{"rendered":"\t
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Farm Forward is proud to announce the launch of a new campaign focused on the global aquaculture industry in partnership with the <\/span>Aquaculture Accountability Project<\/span><\/a> (AAP). Formed in late 2025, AAP is an organization seeking to debunk the myths of \u201csustainable\u201d aquaculture and reduce unsustainable consumption of sea animals. Building on our ongoing work on <\/span>humanewashing<\/span><\/a> and greenwashing, we are working with AAP to expose these myths that have allowed the fastest growing food animal sector to expand exponentially, even as it is causing irreparable harms to our oceans.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Why Focus on Aquaculture?\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

Fish farming is the factory farming of the sea. Like land-based animal agriculture, aquaculture uses <\/span>high-confinement farms<\/span><\/a> to raise fish in overcrowded, disease-ridden, and filthy conditions. In addition to causing widespread animal suffering, aquaculture has catastrophic effects on surrounding ecosystems, destroys critical carbon sinks, and has a high carbon toll. Massive amounts of (often illegal) drugs are used to keep diseased fish alive, deepening the crisis of antibiotic resistance resulting from overuse and misuse of antibiotics in factory farming. But these realities are obscured by myths carefully crafted by an industry that claims that fish farming offers a sustainable alternative to both wild caught fish and land-based animal products.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What are the Myths of \u201cSustainable\u201d Aquaculture?<\/span><\/h3>\n

Myth #1: Fish Farming Reduces Pressure on Wild Fisheries\u00a0<\/b><\/h4>\n

Fish farming emerged as a \u201csolution\u201d to the crisis of the depletion of wild fish populations, promising to reduce pressure on fragile wild fisheries. In reality, industrial aquaculture puts <\/span>more <\/span><\/i>pressure on wild fisheries, further <\/span>depleting wild fish populations<\/span><\/a> in ways that continue to imperil our oceans. With fish farming comes a high demand for small wild fish species (like anchovies and sardines) caught for farmed fish feed. Carnivorous species like salmon require large amounts of these feed fish, with <\/span>recent research<\/span><\/a> revealing that they may consume nearly six times their weight in wild fish before harvest.<\/span><\/p>\n

Myth #2: Fish Farming Meets a Growing Demand for Seafood<\/b><\/h4>\n

Aquaculture has proliferated as a solution to growing demand for sea animals, when in reality, the industry has worked across scientific, policy, and cultural arenas to manufacture that demand. Fish farms now supply <\/span>more than half<\/span><\/a> of all aquatic animal products consumed worldwide. This rapid growth, rather than responding to demand, is driving higher levels of consumption of both wild-caught fish and farmed fish, deepening the crisis of the depletion of wild fish populations and ocean health.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Myth #3: Farmed Fish Is a Healthy Ocean Protein<\/b><\/h4>\n

Fish farms are disease-ridden spaces where <\/span>massive amounts of antibiotics<\/span><\/a> are administered to keep fish alive. Even with the high rates of drug use in the industry, mortality remains high as fish continue to die from disease and spread these diseases to wild populations. The overuse and misuse of <\/span>antibiotics in industrial agriculture<\/span><\/a> is a <\/span>leading cause of global antibiotic resistance<\/span><\/a>, and the aquaculture industry is no exception. Aquaculture poses a risk to human health, not only in compromising the efficacy of antibiotics for the treatment of human disease, but also in the <\/span>health risks<\/span><\/a> associated with consuming these fish.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Myth #4: Farmed Fish Is a Climate-Smart Food<\/b><\/h4>\n

Fish farming, in reality, exacerbates climate change<\/span>. <\/b>Feed production, energy use, and high mortality make aquaculture highly carbon-intensive, with <\/span>emissions often exceeding poultry and pork<\/span><\/a>, and many times higher than plant-based proteins such as peas or soy. Worse, the industry also undermines natural carbon sinks by depleting forage fish who drive ocean carbon storage and by clearing mangroves for shrimp ponds, turning <\/span>key carbon reservoirs<\/span><\/a> into emissions sources.<\/span><\/p>\n

Myth #5: Certifications and Labels Ensure Sustainability<\/b><\/h4>\n

Consumers <\/span>concerned<\/span><\/a> with the sustainability of fish and crustaceans often rely on labels and certifications to ensure that what they\u2019re buying meets sustainability metrics. As in the case of <\/span>animal welfare labeling<\/span><\/a> in land-based agriculture, <\/span>certifications<\/span><\/a> rarely reflect meaningful guarantees of responsible production and are, instead, primarily used as marketing tools to deceive conscientious consumers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Together, we can make a difference\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

As the aquaculture industry continues to grow, it has never been more important to include this sector in our work to end factory farming. We are proud to be working with AAP on finding\u00a0 <\/span>solutions<\/span><\/a> to the problem of industrial aquaculture, from helping to empower consumers to make truly sustainable food choices to working with institutions to change their food purchasing practices. We hope that you will join us in this work. In addition to following Farm Forward\u2019s work on this issue, you can also <\/span>sign up<\/span><\/a> for the AAP newsletter to get involved.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":5570,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,23,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-animal-welfare","category-climate-and-environment","category-humanewashing"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}