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The F-3 Fish Free Feed Challenge: Finding cost-effective fish-free feeds

Hanna Stoner November 07, 2017


Annually, since 2015, the F3 challenge takes place, which is a global competition with the goal of finding innovative fish free feeds. It is a challenge for aquafeed companies to produce and sell the most seafood-free aquaculture feed or be the first to reach 100,000 metric tons of seafood-free sales. Fish-based fish feeds are common throughout the world, but they are not sustainable (you can ready more about sustainable fish feeds in my ealier post here). Thus far companies from Australia, Austria, China, Indonesia, Myanmar, South Africa, Thailand and the U.S. have participated. This years winner was an organization from China, that created alternative feeds for tilapia and carp (Fletcher, 2017). The runner up was Htoo Thit Company, a company based in Myanmar. This comanpy creates plant-based feeds from some vegetable proteins. This organization has also created supplements for fish, they have created a supplement designed to prevent anutritional effects of mycotozins, which are procuded by fungi and contaminate crops (“BIOMIN Participates to Fish-Free Feed (F3) Challenge, 2017). Supplements like this provide solutions for some of the issues that fish free feeds may cause...

The F3 challenge encourages innovation, and is a great way to encourage the development of more sustainable fish feeds. Not only has this challenge encouraged innovation, but it also has helped the world to find cost-competitive solutions that are equally, if not more economically viable, than traditional fish-based fish feeds.This challenge has now extended to also finding fish free alternatives to fish oils.

This challenge will continue to take place, and will hopefully help to make fish-free feeds more available worldwide. Enhance a Village is working with local farmers in the Philippines to develop solutions to create more sustainable fisheries. To learn more you can click here, if you would like to become involved you can volunteer or donate

 Fletcher, R. (2017, November 01). Chinese firm wins Fish-Free Feed (F3) Challenge. Retrieved November 06, 2017, from https://thefishsite.com/articles/chinese-firm-wins-fish-free-feed-f3-challenge BIOMIN Participates to Fish-Free Feed (F3) Challenge. (2017, October 30). Retrieved November 06, 2017, from http://www.biomin.net/us/news/biomin-participates-to-fish-free-feed-f3-challenge/