Research to enhance organic aqua-culture

Together with a number of other partners, the Danish Technological Institute is creating the foundation for breeding organic trout using vegetable foodstuffs. The Danish Research Centre for Organic Food and Farming have subsidised the four-year research project with EUR 0.9 million.

The idea behind the research project is to develop methods which will enable plant products to be turned into protein-rich fish food. The research is aimed at replacing the fish meal in traditional fish food with vegetable protein from organic crops such as peas and rapeseed. There are big advantages in doing this. Firstly, fish meal is becoming a scarce resource and secondly, organic farmers will benefit from having new marketable crops which are more than suitable for organic crop rotation.

As well as the Danish Technological Institute, the National Institute for Aquatic Resources, the Faculty of Life Sciences at Copenhagen University, BioMar A/S, The Danish Aquaculture Organization, DTU Biosys at the Technical University of Denmark and several organic fish farms are also involved in the project.