Supplementary Model for 'The Sustainability Conundrum of Fishmeal Substitution by Plant Ingredients in Shrimp Feeds'

Abstract

Current knowledge suggests that aquaculture growth and its increasing demand for plant ingredients in aquafeed could affect agricultural supply and its resources, such as land, freshwater, and fertilizer. However, the quantitative impact is relatively unknown. Therefore, we modeled the natural resource demands of a transition to plant-based ingredients in shrimp feed formulations. In this study, feed formulation algorithms were used to create unique feed formulations per shrimp species, with intermediate declining steps of 20% fishmeal substitution by plant ingredients while accounting for the dietary requirements of individual shrimp species. These diets were modeled in combination with a comprehensive multifactorial assessment of marine and terrestrial resource demand for agricultural crop production and processed ingredients.

For a detailed description, the secondary data used, feed formulations, resource demand dataset and equations, consult the Materials and Methods of the paper (open access) ‘The Sustainability Conundrum of Fishmeal Substitution by Plant Ingredients in Shrimp Feeds’; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11041212. The methodology for the feed formulations and data input is explained in Section 3.1. This is followed up (Section 3.2) by a detailed explanation of the marine and terrestrial resource demand dataset for each ingredient, which was based on FAO data and scientific literature. The last (Section 3.3) explains the model simulations and runs and includes an overview of the modeled feed formulations, ingredients, and their respective resource demand values (Table 1). These data are modeled in order to calculate the range in resource demands of the combined ingredients in the feed formulation with the equation explained at the end of Section 3.3.