Organic food group blasts fishmeal for inefficiency

Despite a dwindling supply of wild fish stocks, each year, 14 million tonnes of fish are used as animal feed in the form of fishmeal, according to an article from the Organic Consumers' Association.

This meant 17 percent of all wild caught fish, meaning one in five fishes caught by fishing boats are eaten by farm animals.

Given these figures and rampant overfishing a problem throughout the world, the article questions whether it is efficient to feed fishes to pigs and chickens

The giving of these energy-rich foods such as sardines, anchovy and mackerel to animals  meant a 90-percent energy loss, the article said. In farms, grains would have converted energy into protein much more efficiently.