This Company Is Looking to Disrupt the Fishing Industry

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The following post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga.

The global fishing industry has a problem. According to a study published in the Journal of Science, if global commercial fishing continues to operate the way it has, there may be no more fish to catch by 2048. This potential eventuality would be primarily caused by harmful practices of the industry that ignore their ecological impact, as well as declining water quality, algae blooms and interruptions in the natural food chain.

One of the worst offenders is the practice of bottom trawling or dragging. In this method, fishers drag huge nets along the ocean floor. The process disturbs the seabed, kicks up large amounts of sediment, dirties the water and kills coral species, a vital component of the ocean’s ecosystem.

The sediment that is mixed into the water can travel long distances along the ocean’s currents and block the vital sunlight needed to sustain the oceanic plant life. This plant life oxygenates the water and in its absence, dead zones are created in which fish suffocate.

The practice is so bad that the United Nations General Assembly has urged member nations to ban the practice.

And for the dwindling fish populations that survive, their health is deteriorating due to the accelerating effects of climate change and the millions of tons of plastic waste that finds its way into the world’s oceans each year. Climate change has led to more polluted waters, destroyed natural habitats and migration patterns, while microplastics and nanoplastics have been found to migrate from the digestive tracts of fish into their muscle tissue – the very tissue we eat.

A recent study found plastics had been ingested by 210 species of fish the humans consume. An average of one in four of those fish had plastics in their system.

A new technology has emerged, however, that may provide a way out of this potential ecological and public health disaster. A recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) is designed to run on land and have minimal environmental impact. It is essentially an advanced fish farm that solves the issues that come with traditional models.

Large players like Mowi ASA MHGVY and Leroy Seafood Group ASA LYSFF have explored the technology and are beginning to invest.

Blue Star Foods Corp. BSFC is going all-in on the technology. The company believes that RAS is the future of the fishing industry.

Water usage in traditional farming techniques is the major issue. Fish need fresh, oxygenated water, and they produce waste like any other animal. Farms would siphon water from a river and then deposit water that contained waste back into the local ecosystem.

With RAS, the same water is continuously used. It is filtered and scrubbed to remove the waste and CO2, which is turned into fertilizer, then reoxygenated and pumped back in. It is essentially a closed-loop. According to Blue Star, this process makes it much more sustainable and, critically, provides fish free of pollutants and plastics. In fact, it becomes the most efficient and environmentally friendly source of animal protein. Beef, pork and chicken all require more energy and resources and excrete more waste.

If you’d like to know more about Blue Star’s efforts, you can check out https://bluestarfoods.com/.

The preceding post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga. Although the piece is not and should not be construed as editorial content, the sponsored content team works to ensure that any and all information contained within is true and accurate to the best of their knowledge and research. This content is for informational purposes only and not intended to be investing advice.