Drifting Fish Farm Yields First Harvest in US Waters [environmentally sustainable fish farming]

sustainablebrands.com ^ | March 1, 2012 | Bart King

[Dusty Road]

Ok that 6.5 to 1 ratio on cattle is way misleading, their talking feedlot cattle and not open range. We raise on average 1200 cattle on 38 sections, all open range. This year we didn’t have to supply any additional feed other than the range cubes we use to gather them up for counting and inspection and thats less than 500 lbs a week. If they’d just come to the truck and stand in line we wouldn’t need that. When we sell some go to other ranches but most go directly to butcher. We are in West TX.

[posterchild]

For city folk that don’t know, a section is 640 acres = 1 square mile.
You could start your own country.

[Wonder Warthog]

"How are they high in omega 3s when they aren’t eating krill?"

They're in the open ocean (in the cage, of course)...OF COURSE they're eating krill (in addition to their regular "fish chow").

[dangerdoc]

Open ocean is barren like a desert. There is a reason that fish avoid those areas, there is a lack of food. That is why I question the fish’s level of Omega 3 fatty acids.

[Wonder Warthog]

"Open ocean is barren like a desert. There is a reason that fish avoid those areas, there is a lack of food. That is why I question the fish’s level of Omega 3 fatty acids."

I can guarantee you that there is plankton/krill throughout the entire surface layer of the ocean. More (sometimes a lot more) in some places than others, depending on local nutrient availability, of course, but nowhere "barren". Nor is any land desert ever "barren". There is always life somewhere around.....it is ubiquitous.

And if I were a smart fish-farmer, I would choose sites where the concentration is higher (assuming availability). No farmer in his right mind is going to turn down "free feed" for his critters, even if they are fish.

And I'm also sure that some fish biologist will run a comparative test on those (Omega-3) and other aspects of the "farmed fish" (and such tests may well be part of the research on THIS project).

[dangerdoc]

I expect that they will be tested, one of the problems of farm raised fish is low omega 3 levels, if they have that licked, they have a major marketing advantage over more conventional farm raised fish.