Meatonomics (26 page)

The pressure on wild populations, the prevalence of parasites and disease, the lopsided input-output ratios, and the high levels of
concentrated waste and chemicals all suggest aquaculture is hard-pressed to deliver on its promise to feed the world sustainably. In fact, these problems have led a number of scientists to condemn fish farming as irresponsible.
⁵³
One group of researchers, for example, analyzed the practice of farming salmon and trout in Sweden's coastal waters. Taking into account its large externalized costs, the researchers concluded the system “is not only ecologically but also economically unsustainable.”
⁵⁴
Another team of scientists concluded that pen farming in China is an “economically irrational choice from the perspective of the whole society, with an unequal tradeoff between environmental costs and economic benefits.”
⁵⁵
Throw in the ethical issues associated with fish farming discussed in
chapter 8
, and it's evident that cage aquaculture—the world's predominant fish farming system—presents as many problems as land-based factory farming.

Conceivably, fish farming
could
be ecologically fixed by containing and greening it like at the University of Maryland. But as we've already seen, its high costs make this model commercially unviable. Just like CAFO operators, industrial fish farmers seek a regulatory framework that lets them externalize as much of their costs as possible. And they seek to operate in a way that complies with that framework at a minimum of expense. Can you blame them? Like most business owners, they're in it to make money—not to save the planet.

Around the world, regulation of fish farming is spotty and inconsistent. Since 95 percent of the farmed fish that Americans eat is imported, mostly from lesser-regulated regions like China and South America, most Americans who eat fish unwittingly skirt our own regulatory system. Jeffrey McCrary is an American fish biologist who has spent ten years studying how a small tilapia farm degraded Lake Apoyo in Nicaragua. “One small cage screwed up the entire lake—the entire lake!” McCrary said in a 2011 interview with the
New York Times
. “We wouldn't allow tilapia to be farmed in the United States the way they are farmed here,” McCrary said, “so why are we willing to eat them? We are exporting the environmental damage caused by our appetites.”
⁵⁶

The United States has, so far, trailed the rest of the world in aquaculture production. Half the fish we eat is farmed, but only 5 percent is raised here. But times are changing, and the federal government is starting to push fish farming almost as vigorously as it markets milk and meat. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) urges, in a special area of its website dedicated to aquaculture, “A compelling case can be made for growing more seafood in the United States.” That's because, among other things:

The $1 billion value of total U.S. aquaculture production (freshwater and marine) pales in comparison to the $100 billion value of world aquaculture production. According to the latest information from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the United States ranks 13th in total aquaculture production.
⁵⁷

With this kind of government agenda, the United States certainly seems well-poised to improve its standing in the global farmed fish market. Of course, this prognosis should give you flashbacks to earlier chapters on land-based animal farming because, with little doubt, the producers who lead the charge will seek to dump most of their production costs on the rest of us.

As with other methods of raising animals for food, fish production heaps huge external costs on society. Fishing's advocates say it provides jobs and benefits the world economy, but the UN begs to differ. In light of subsidies and other problems discussed already, the UN says, “Global marine fisheries . . . represent a
net economic loss
to society.”
⁵⁸

Consider the externalized costs of aquaculture, which experts find can range from 20 percent to more than 100 percent of the value of a fish farm's output.
⁵⁹
There are no published estimates of fish farming's external costs in the United States, but because research finds these costs often equal the value of fish produced, aquaculture's external costs can be conservatively pegged at half the total value of
production, or $650 million yearly.
⁶⁰
However, those are just the US costs. Since we import 95 percent of our farmed fish, almost all of the external costs of production are imposed on other countries.

Then there are the costs of overfishing. Recent research published by a team of experts suggests that overfishing in North America leads to losses of about 30 percent of the actual catch.
⁶¹
Applying this estimate to the portion of total US landings ($4.8 billion) indicates that the annual US cost of overfishing is about $1.4 billion.
⁶²
But again, this figure neglects the imported fish Americans consume. Also, this limited estimate fails to account for hundreds of nontarget species deprived of food, most of which have no recognized economic value, whose numbers are dropping around the world as overfishing starves them out of existence.

Finally, there are the costs of bycatch. As we've seen, research shows that bycatch losses often
equal
the value of the total landed catch. While there are no definitive figures for the United States, the costs of US bycatch losses can be roughly estimated at half our commercial landings of $4.8 billion—that is, $2.4 billion.
⁶³

CHART 8.1
Annual Externalized Costs of US Fish Production (in billions of dollars)

The $4.5 billion in estimated externalized costs of US fishing activities amounts to more than 70 percent of the US fishing system's total output of $6.1 billion.
⁶⁴
Oddly, compared to the hundreds of billions in costs that land-based animal agriculture generates, this doesn't sound like much. And in fact, because this figure is limited to US costs, it's deceptively small. But then, most of the external costs of producing fish for American consumption are imposed on people outside the United States.

There are other significant, but unavoidable, omissions from this estimate. Oceans supply a variety of indispensable ecosystem services to the planet—life-support systems that keep humans and other animals alive and fed. Among others, these include filtering services that keep water clean and nursery habitat services that provide important areas where juveniles can develop (such as wetlands, oyster reefs, and sea grass beds). A 1997 study estimated the total value of marine ecosystems services was $21
trillion
in 1994 dollars—or $33 trillion today.
⁶⁵
To put this in perspective, US GDP—the highest in the world—is about $15 trillion.

Because of the interconnectedness of species in an ecosystem, when ocean biodiversity declines, a marine ecosystem's ability to provide these valuable services also falls. Since 1800, as human activity has reduced marine biodiversity, filtering and nursery habitat functions have each fallen by more than 60 percent.
⁶⁶
The economic costs of drops caused by fishing in these and other ecosystem services have not yet been measured. But when these costs are calculated, and presumably someday they will be, they could easily measure an order of magnitude more than the $4.5 billion we can calculate today.

Is the supply-driven focus on ramping up fish production misplaced? Fishers and fish farmers are decimating the world's oceans to catch or raise fish in ever greater quantities, but the planet's fisheries should now be exploited
less
, not more, if they are to recover and heal. And
the evidence shows that fish farming—that reputed paragon of food production—just makes things worse. Among other failures, we've seen that aquaculture causes many of the same environmental problems as factory farming. Further, aquaculture's practice of robbing Peter to pay Paul—overexploiting little fish to feed bigger ones—just ratchets up the pressure on depleted fisheries and threatened species.

Given the earth's limited resources, maybe the answer to the fishing question isn't to crank
up
supply—but rather to turn
down
demand. As with meat and dairy, demand for fish has been artificially inflated by economic forces, and the world simply doesn't need to eat fish at these—or any—levels. One important path toward restoring true market equilibrium is to eliminate fishing subsidies in the United States and around the world. And on a personal level, you might consider replacing some or all of the seafood in your own diet with plant-based proteins. Omega-3s are readily found in a variety of vegetable sources—including flax, hemp, soy, and walnuts. And unlike virtually all fish, these sources
don't
contain cholesterol, mercury, and PCBs (
see
Appendix A
). Consider the consequences of just giving up shrimp. With the highest bycatch-to-target ratios in the industry, a few plates of foregone prawns could save a dozen other fish from the discard pile.

Some believe the answer is to stop eating seafood altogether. After all, considering the harmful environmental effects of either catching or farming fish, it's sort of a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't dilemma. Maybe that's what George W. Bush had in mind in 2000 when he astutely observed, “I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully.”

• Industrial fishing and aquaculture activities are damaging the world's oceans. If not curbed, factory fishing operations will eliminate all currently fished species by the middle of this century. While fishing's proponents defend the industry on the grounds that it creates jobs and helps the world economy, the
  UN complains that on the contrary, fishing represents a net economic loss to the world.
  
• Although we import most of our seafood, the economic costs to Americans of US fish production are nevertheless sizable. Fishing's biggest economic problem is that of bycatch, or incidental taking, with nearly 200 million pounds of marine life killed and discarded each day in the world's oceans. In the United States alone, bycatch costs an estimated $2.4 billion yearly. Overfishing is another leading source of destruction and economic loss, costing US taxpayers and consumers roughly $1.4 billion each year. And fish farming, with its heavy environmental damage and destructive pressure on wild populations, is both unsustainable and socially expensive—with a cost to Americans of nearly $1 billion in externalized costs each year. Yet because most of our fish come from outside the United States, the $4.5 billion in total US externalized expenses represents just a tiny fraction of the worldwide hidden costs related to Americans' fish consumption.
  
• As the Jevons paradox predicts, while fishers and fish farmers catch or raise marine life in increasing quantities, the higher availability and lower production costs of seafood (stemming from subsidies and industrial production methods) keep retail prices low. These supply-driven forces push fish consumption higher, and they accelerate the destruction of the world's oceans. It seems the only way to find a sustainable equilibrium between supply and demand for seafood is to lower demand. On an individual level, that might mean making a personal decision to eat less fish. And at an institutional level, it means the federal government must end fishing subsidies and adopt policies to lower demand—as discussed in the next chapter.
  

Years ago, I had a legal client I'll call Frank. Like a squirrel with a nut, Frank had a tenacious and single-minded focus on his company's bottom line. Once, early in our relationship, he handed me a check with such evident annoyance that I actually tried to make my later requests smaller. Another time, I suggested paying modest severance to a fired employee, although the company had no legal obligation to do so. As he did from time to time, Frank reminded me—in a joking tone that didn't hide the seriousness of his message—“Remember, we're in it for the money.” In other words, despite an occasional show of concern for employees, customers, and other stakeholders, the company really existed for one purpose—to make money for Frank and a few other shareholders. If this management style seems mercenary, it isn't—nor is it atypical. It is, more or less, business as usual for just about any US company. “American corporations,” observed historian Stephen Ambrose, “hate to give away money.”

We've seen over and over in the preceding chapters that big business is in it for the money. But the consequences of profit-driven business practices go beyond the purely financial. This book seeks to quantify the hidden pecuniary effects of meatonomics, but numbers tell only part of the story—the real results go much deeper. When we lose a loved one to cancer or stroke, we suffer more than the costs of treatment or lost earnings. When we're bothered by the mistreatment of animals, it's not because we wonder how much we'd pay to end it but because it makes us question our own humanity.