Findings

Aquaculture was meant to relieve pressure on the oceans. By raising fish, fewer would need to be taken from the wild—or so the logic went. In practice, the opposite has occurred. More than a fifth of all marine life removed from the oceans is used for feed, primarily for farmed fish. And demand for farm-raised fish is increasing. More than half of the seafood eaten globally comes from aquaculture, which is a $313-billion industry and the fastest-growing segment of global food production.

Politics of Protein

In many countries, the fishmeal industry has become a source of political instability on land and at sea. The investigation documented at least 80 incidents of civil unrest, some of them violent, most commonly in the form of labor strikes and community protests tied to fishmeal. Clashes were especially common in India, Peru, and Senegal. Demonstrations were most often sparked by the stench from factories cooking thousands of tons of decomposing fish, or by the dumping of toxic waste into local waterways. Other protests centered on the depletion of fish stocks and the resulting loss of livelihoods for small-scale fishers.

The industry also contributes to geopolitical tensions. In Turkey, for instance, fleets driven by demand for fishmeal and fish oil routinely intrude into neighboring waters, triggering violent confrontations. Europe imports fishmeal from Morocco that is illegally harvested from Western Sahara, which Morocco occupies. Fishmeal production in West Africa has accelerated overfishing, eroding traditional fishing grounds and contributing to outward migration as artisanal fishers seek alternative ways to survive.

Further, the industry plays a major role in global inequity. Despite claims that fish farming offers an ecological and ethical way to sustain a growing global population, accounting for feed reveals a different dynamic—one that resembles a form of food colonialism. Much of global aquaculture produces high-value seafood for wealthier markets by diverting food-grade fish from poorer regions that depend on those species as affordable sources of protein. Roughly 90 percent of the catch used to produce fishmeal is edible for humans. Most fishmeal plants also rely on whole fish rather than processing waste or inedible byproducts, further intensifying local food insecurity in the communities where these fish are taken.

Stench & Toxic Waste

One of the industry’s least visible burdens is its stench, borne most heavily by the people living closest to the world’s more than 1,400 fishmeal factories. The odor comes from cooking thousands of tons of decomposing fish and signals the release of noxious gases, including ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, cyanide, and methane—substances that can cause serious health problems with sustained exposure. The most distinctive and potent component is trimethylamine (TMA), the compound responsible for the unmistakably fishy smell of rotting marine life. This odor is more than a nuisance. It undermines local economies by driving away tourism and rendering surrounding areas difficult, and sometimes impossible, to inhabit. It is also a documented health risk. In 2021, the Society of Chemical Industry described TMA as “strongly toxic and carcinogenic.”

Few countries systematically monitor or mitigate industrial stench. In Peru, the world’s largest producer of fishmeal, scientists developed devices to measure and lessen foul emissions. However, most factories in Peru and elsewhere do not use the devices because they are costly. To discern how many people globally this toxic odor impacts, we used data from WorldPop to determine the population within a “stink radius” of half-mile, one-mile, three-mile, and five-mile areas surrounding each plant. The investigation found that more than 9.5 million people worldwide, including nearly 1.7 million under the age of 15, live within a mile of fishmeal plants. We documented more than 70 instances of neighbors complaining about the stench from at least 60 plants in 15 countries.

Communities living near fishmeal plants also suffer from the dumping of toxic waste into nearby rivers and estuaries, along roadways and coastlines, or into illegal boreholes. Such dumping threatens coastal tourism, undermines local fisheries, and contaminates water sources relied upon by surrounding communities for drinking and for livestock. The investigation documented at least 90 cases of illegal dumping linked to over 70 fishmeal plants across more than 18 countries.

Opaque & Unsustainable Fleet

The investigation assessed more than 2,400 ships tied to fishmeal production, operating in the waters of at least 30 countries. We found that most of these ships do not fully comply with the Global Charter for Fisheries Transparency, a guide created by leading ocean-focused civil society groups detailing accountability standards for industrial fishing. For example, less than 30 percent of the fishmeal fleet had publicly available location information, below 25 percent had a unique vessel identification number—or ship license plate—and under 10 percent were registered with the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization’s global record of fishing vessels. This opacity makes the fleet difficult to police.

The industry is also unsustainable. Scientific studies classified at least half of the species landed by the assessed fishmeal vessels as “overexploited” or worse. In the waters of a half dozen countries, these ships were targeting fisheries where virtually all of the primary target species were in a dire state. Most of them are purse seiners or trawlers, which deploy vast nets to capture dense schools of fish. Both gear types are associated with high levels of waste, routinely hauling in large volumes of bycatch and non-target species. At least 165 of the ships in the global fishmeal fleet were bottom trawlers, conducting a particularly destructive form of fishing that uses weighted nets that scrape the ocean floor, devastating virtually everything in their paths. The problem of unsustainable fishing is compounded by heavy government subsidies that keep too many vessels operating, accelerating pressure on already stressed fisheries.

Illegal fishing is widespread within the fleet. Over 150 of the assessed ships were tied to problems at sea, like fishing in closed or protected seas, violating quotas and rules around bycatch, or fishing without licenses. Upwards of 70 ships were detected likely fishing in marine protected areas on more than 600 occasions.

Worker Safety, Spontaneous Combustion, Carcinogens

Producing fishmeal is inherently dangerous, both at sea and on land. Since 2018, the global fishmeal fleet has recorded at least 50 crew deaths and injuries aboard fishmeal vessels, most often resulting from sinkings, explosions, or asphyxiation caused by toxic gases released as fish rot in ship holds. Fishing is already the world’s deadliest occupation, with more than 100,000 fatalities each year, according to the Fish Safety Foundation, and fishmeal operations compound those risks. Since 2018, more than 30 workers have died, and over 440 workers have been injured at fishmeal plants globally.

Fishmeal factories present similar hazards. Since 2018, at least 20 plants or vessels linked to the industry have experienced fires or explosions. Fishmeal is highly flammable, and as it oxidizes, it can spontaneously combust. In the 1950s and 1960s alone, fishmeal plants and ships suffered at least 90 such fires. The number of incidents fell sharply after 1967, when the shipping industry began treating fishmeal with the fire retardant ethoxyquin. But in attempting to reduce one danger, the fishmeal industry amplified another.

To address this fire risk, companies and regulators pushed for the use of chemical fire retardants, only to discover that the solution carried serious health concerns of its own. Long preferred as the fire retardant to spray on fishmeal, ethoxyquin has since been linked to carcinogenic effects. The European Union banned the chemical in 2017. China continues to authorize its use in food. The United States prohibits ethoxyquin in food processing but still allows it in certain animal feeds, including those used in aquaculture.

Ethoxyquin is also appearing in seafood consumed in the United States. A review of more than 16,000 FDA inspection records from 2018 to 2022 found trace amounts of the chemical in three categories of seafood: shrimp, most often imported from Indonesia and India; salmon, primarily from Chile; and tilapia, frequently from China. In every case, detected levels fell below the threshold that the FDA considers safe. Critics, however, argue that the FDA’s safety standard is permissive, particularly when compared with the European Union’s approach of prohibiting ethoxyquin in food altogether. The chemical is also used on some fruits and vegetables to slow skin degradation during transport. The FDA data showed that seafood shipments were more than 10 times as likely to contain ethoxyquin as other tested foods, including asparagus, cucumbers, and tomatoes.

The fishmeal and aquaculture industries have begun shifting away from ethoxyquin and toward a replacement chemical, BHA. Emerging academic research suggests, however, that this alternative may also pose carcinogenic risks.

Rhetoric-to-Reality Gap

The investigation uncovered a disconnect between seafood companies’ sustainability and social responsibility pledges and conditions on the ground in their supply chains. To show this gap, we cataloged the marketing and certification claims of thousands of seafood, feed, and fishing companies. We then compared them to reported alleged environmental and labor violations tied to their suppliers.

This gap between claims and crimes is important because it contributes to an increasing threat of litigation for seafood companies. Since 2020, at least nine lawsuits alleging false advertising have been brought against six seafood companies across six US jurisdictions. The complaints focused on a common pattern: marketing claims that portrayed products as sustainable or ethically sourced, paired with supply-chain evidence that suggested otherwise. Plaintiffs challenged language such as “sustainable,” “eco-friendly,” “all-natural,” “wild-caught,” and “from the coast of Maine,” as well as claims of superior worker-safety standards. In at least four cases, the use of fishmeal or fish oil and their link to industrial fishing and ecosystem depletion were central to arguments that the products were not environmentally sustainable.

Additional allegations included forced labor on fishing vessels and reliance on harmful pesticides and antibiotics. During this same period, seafood companies have paid more than $2 million in settlement fees to resolve false-advertising cases. The Outlaw Ocean Project investigation assessed more than 559 seafood companies that made marketing claims comparable to—or stronger than—those cited in the lawsuits and found that over half of them had documented crimes or concerns within their supply chains. Of the fishmeal plants and supplier fishing vessels investigated, at least 80 had been certified by MarinTrust, virtually all of which had crimes or concerns associated with their supply chains. Of the plants and ships investigated, at least 29 were certified by Friend of the Sea, all of which had associated crimes or concerns.

Sustainability claims were most common among companies that held third-party certifications, which provide assurances to consumers that their seafood is not linked to environmental or labor concerns. Lawsuits were filed primarily in the District of Columbia, California, Illinois, New York, Massachusetts, and Maine—jurisdictions with comparatively aggressive consumer-protection and false-advertising statutes.

The gap between claims and crimes is also important because, historically, many companies have intentionally or unintentionally, avoided liability by shifting culpability to suppliers and subcontractors. However, a recent US court ruling may set a precedent in addressing this type of plausible deniability, which would make it more imperative for seafood companies to account for environmental or labor problems in their full supply chains, all the way from bait to plate.

China’s Blue Miracle

Some of the most hidden costs in global aquaculture are concentrated in China: The world’s largest producer and exporter of farmed seafood is also one of its most opaque and repressive operating environments. One such cost, rarely tracked by the seafood industry, is the use of state-sponsored forced labor, particularly involving Uyghur workers from Xinjiang, a landlocked region in China’s far west. The global seafood industry faced a reckoning on this issue in 2023, after an investigation from The Outlaw Ocean Project revealed that thousands of Uyghur workers were being forcibly dispatched to seafood-processing factories along China’s eastern coast, thousands of miles from Xinjiang, under a government-run “labor transfer” program. Much of the seafood processed in these facilities entered US markets in violation of federal law, which prohibits imports linked to Xinjiang because of documented human-rights abuses.

The Food-for-Feed investigation has since uncovered movement in the opposite direction. The Chinese state is not only relocating workers westward to process seafood; it is also pushing fish farms westward into Xinjiang. The initiative, often referred to as the “Blue Miracle,” promotes aquaculture in a region that is largely arid, saline, and thousands of miles from the ocean. The investigation found that Xinjiang is now among the fastest-growing aquaculture regions in China, with production expanding by roughly 85 percent in dollar value since 2017, when the government’s western aquaculture campaign intensified.

China’s inland push of fish farming is not just for food production. It is also part of a larger government campaign aimed at pacifying and modernizing the country’s restive and poorer western regions, including Xinjiang and Tibet. The aquaculture industry is being used to convert nomadic herders into sedentary farmers. The effort also aims to decrease the environmental pollution off China’s eastern coast, where offshore fish farming was overly concentrated in decades past, and to strengthen the country’s food independence by lessening the burden on the high-seas fishing fleet. Nationally, fish farms in China now produce over four times the amount of catch that its fishing vessels do. The fish farming campaign is also a source of national pride, bolstered by a government-backed media campaign that highlights the engineering ingenuity that has been required to achieve aquaculture in such an inhospitable location.

Home to more than 1,000 fish farms, Xinjiang and Tibet produce an estimated half a billion dollars’ worth of farmed seafood annually, much of which is exported to more than a dozen countries, including the United States, Canada, and Russia, as well as markets across Europe. One Xinjiang-based company, Xinjiang Tianyun Organic Agriculture, claims to produce approximately 40 percent of China’s salmon. Some of this seafood enters the US in violation of federal law. Through intermediaries, Tianyun supplies seafood to Aqua Star, which is then distributed to cafeterias, public schools, federal prisons, and military bases by Sysco, the world’s largest food-service company.

China’s effort to promote fish farming in Tibet and Xinjiang is partly facilitated by severe state repression, including the widespread appropriation of land, intense police surveillance, and incarceration of tens of thousands of local residents.

Road Ahead

Not all aquaculture is as problematic. Farmed shellfish such as mussels, oysters, and clams remain comparatively sustainable because they require no feed. However, more than two-thirds of farmed seafood today depends on feed from the sea itself.

Meanwhile, demand for this fishmeal and fish oil is on the rise, while supply seems to be heading in the opposite direction. Five of the world’s largest salmon companies increased their absolute use of fishmeal and fish oil made from whole wild fish by as much as 39 percent between 2020 and 2024, according to a report from the Farm Animal Investment Risk and Return Initiative. Most global fisheries now operate under quota regulations, suggesting production of marine ingredients has already peaked, according to Novel Sharma, a Rabobank analyst specializing in the seafood and aquaculture industries, who predicted that global supplies of fishmeal could be tapped out as soon as 2028.

Alternatives to fishmeal exist, but have struggled to be commercially viable or scalable. The industry is increasingly turning its attention to krill, especially in the Southern Ocean near Antarctica.