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.ficiently tapping the ocean food
resource?
The Origin of tbe Dream
The food-from-the-sea dream promul–
gated a few years back was based
on theoretical estimates that the ocean's
fish harvest could be increased to many
times its current yield.
The total biological production of the
ocean is said to
be
about 400 billion
tons of organic material per year. This
includes the growth of the plankton
that feed the ocean's food chains. Since
man ís presently taking only about 60
to 70 million tons of seafood a year
( only a small portion of the sea's
organic production), many assume the
oceao harvest could be greatly increased.
Sorne marine biologists have estimated
that 150 to 200 million tons of seafood
are directly at our .fingertips.
Such estimates have spurred man's
efforts into the "inner space" of oceans
to close the ever-widening food and
protein gap.
Already scientists of nations such as
Japan have been developing new and
improved methods of extracting .fish
from the ocean. Their efforts have
brought oew "space-age" advances to
the fishing industry.
But, this increasing exploitation of
commercial fishes
is
causing alarm
among many biologists. Rather than
having an inexhaustible supply of fish,
the ocean is showing signs that roan is
dangerously near overfishing certain
species. Though these space-age ad–
vances · have greatly increased fish
catches, they have also led to
overexploitation.
Ocean NOT "Unlimited"
Reports once claimed that the wide
ocean was a vast storehouse of food.
"All we must do," went the proposals,
"is farm this ready-made meat-on-the–
fin, and we will solve the food shortage
crisis."
But a doser look at this dream of
"ocean plenty" presents a less optimistic
picture.
About 90 percent of the ocean and
nearly three fourths of the earth's sur–
face is essentially
a biological desert.
It
produces a tiny fraction of the world's
present fish catch and has little or no
The
PLAIN TRUTII
potential for yielding more m the
future.
Most of the ocean
is
too deep for
Iight to penetrate deep enough to sup–
port much life. The great fishing
grounds of the world are dose to shore
where powerful upwelling currents
bring nutrients to the sucface. Here
thrive the plankton, the many plants
and the smaU sea creatures that provide
food for larger fishes caught by man.
These nutrient-rich continental shelves
are being fished somewhere near a max–
imum efficiency now.
A recent analysis of fish availability
in tbe ocean put the maximum
sustain–
able
commercial fish yield at around
100 million metric tons - somewhat
less than twice the 1967 yield of 60
million. Estimates of a higher yield
would require moving clown the food
chain from the big fish normally caught
to the plunderous harvesting of such
food sources as planktoo.
Plankton Farming
Plankton - the microscopic plants
and animals that swarm oceao waters -
have been called the "nutritious soup of
the sea." In the rich, cold Antarctic
waters, a baby blue whale strains
enough plankton to put on 80 pounds a
day, and to grow to 65 feet in length by
its second birthday.
Sorne scientists have envisioned
atomíc-powered "whales" gulping clown
shiploads of plankton and regur–
gitating them into the lardees of the
world.
"By 1984," a scientist once predicted,
"krill
may be making the greatest addi–
tion to man's food supply of the
century...."
The abundance of plankton in the
oceans once Jed many to believe that
someday it might be the answer to the
population-food crisis. "Find a way to
reap this highly-nutritious, Roating
protein at the doorsteps of under–
nourished nations," sorne scientists rea–
soned, "and we will be able to feed our
hungry, over-populated world."
But the days of plankton steaks and
planktonburgers are not as sure as at
first hoped. Besides the problem of
reaping the right type of plankton
adrift (sorne species are poisonous),
these krill concentrations vary from
August 1971
place to place, season to season, and
even day to day.
In rich areas like the Gulf of Maine
oc
the North Sea,
5000
tons of water
would have to be strained to get 10
pouods of plankton.
The most important question is, what
would happen to fish higher on the
food chain if man began heavily ex–
ploiting plankton - the
formdation
of
the food chain in the sea? The whole
ecology of the ocean could be upset.
It
would be like starving all the beef cattle
in order to have the pleasure of eating
the pasture grass they live on.
Fish Protein Concentrate
Scientists at Scripps Institute of Ocean–
ography in San Diego are also worry–
ing about the overfishing of certain
species. Although convinced that the
ocean barvest could be increased, they
know that commercial fish sources could
be "overkilled," resulting in their total
depletion.
For example, Scripps studies of the
anchovy off Peru revealed that fish–
ing there had reached its maximum. A
major increase in exploitation would
hurt and eventually devastate the .fish
stocks.
Jt is obvious that any great increase
in the world's fish harvest would mean
going after fish not now being ex–
ploited. But even this would not be a
breakthrough for the world's hungry.
There would still be problems of stor–
age and transportation - distribution,
rapid spoilage, processing costs, and the
eating habits of the consumers.
The need for a ready-made substance
that will not become rancid over long
periods of storage has caused the devel–
opment of .fish protein concentrate
(FPC). It would
be
a sort of protein
food supplement. Scientists estimate
that this concentrate would be produced
in almost unlimited quantities. This is
because
any kind
of fish can be used.
The whole animal - head, víscera,
scales and all - is ground up, dried
and run through a chemical and elec–
trical processor.
But the FPC is not without its
problems. The final product is a taste–
less, odorless, bacteria-free white pow–
der. And, the idea of eating fish flour
made from
j
ust any type of whole fish,