The aquaculture industry around the world is facing a major crisis due to the conventional fish feed that is commonly used for farming various fish species sinking rapidly underwater. This crisis is threatening the livelihood of millions of fish farmers and putting food security at risk. In this article, we will explore in detail various aspects of this issue of sinking fish feed and provide some suggestions to overcome this challenge.

Rising Concerns

For decades, fish farmers have relied on the use of sinking pellet feeds that contain optimum nutrients required for the healthy growth of fish. However, in recent years, it has been observed that these conventional feeds tend to sink too rapidly in water bodies before fish can consume them fully. This results in massive wastage of feed and loss of revenue for fish farmers. According to estimates, of sinking feed goes uneaten putting financial burden on the industry. With rising input costs and uncertainties, fish farmers can hardly afford such wastage of feed.

Another major concern is that excess Sinking Fish Feed settling at the bottom of ponds and cages pollutes the aquatic environment by changing water quality parameters like dissolved oxygen, pH level etc. This poses serious threat to the health of cultivated fish species. Moreover, accumulation of excess nutrients in water leads to unwanted algal blooms affecting the overall ecological balance. Therefore, addressing the issue of rapidly sinking conventional feed has become the need of the hour.

Rising Feed Costs

It is a well known fact that feed constitutes of the total operational cost in commercial aquaculture. However, due to inflation in prices of key ingredients like fishmeal, soy meal, maize etc. that are used in manufacturing aquafeed, the cost of conventional sinking feeds has surged significantly over the past 5 years. As per data, average cost of sinking aquafeed has risen by during this period placing heavy economic burden on fish farmers already reeling under issues of volatility and uncertainties.

This rising cost of conventionally used sinking feeds has emerged as a major factor impacting the profitability and sustainability of the aquaculture sector. Considering the current crisis, fish farmers are now exploring alternative sustainable floating feed options that can reduce feed wastage substantially while keeping the overall feed cost in check. This shift is expected to help revive the aquaculture industry from the ongoing sinking feed feed crisis.

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