The project was recently completed Protein requirement of cod where ways were sought to reduce the cost of cod farming and make this young industry more profitable. Feed cost is 40-60% of the total production cost of the fire and therefore attention was focused on whether and how it could be reduced. A new IFL report presents the results of this study.
There has been a lot of talk about the alleged deplorable state of wild fish stocks recently, and the journal Science recently published a report predicting the collapse of all the world's fish stocks by the middle of this century. In fact, not everyone was prepared to accept this pessimistic forecast, including the director of the MRI.
Apart from these disputes, it is predicted that aquaculture, not least aquaculture of sea species such as cod, will grow enormously in the coming years and decades. Icelanders have been following this development closely, as have many nations in the North Atlantic, and cod farming has already begun in several places in Iceland.
As stated earlier, feed costs are between 40-60% of the total production cost of the fire and in order to increase profitability in this industry, it is clear that there are most promising ways to reduce costs. Protein is the most expensive nutrient in feed for fish and therefore it is very important to minimize its content so that it goes primarily to building muscle and not to energy consumption, as cheaper nutrients, such as fat, can be of similar use.
In a new IFL report Protein requirements of farmed cod Among other things, a study was reported where the goal was to find the optimal protein content for two size categories of cod, on the one hand 30-100g and on the other hand 300-500g of cod. Among other things, the research showed that the larger cod's (300-500g) need for protein was less than what is normally used in factory-produced feed today. There is therefore possibly one way to reduce feed costs without compromising the quality of the cod.
Protein requirement of cod which was a two-year project funded by the AVS Fund. The project was part of a larger project, Feed for Atlantic cod, which was funded by the Nordic Industrial Development Fund October 2003 - 2006. Icelandic participants in the project were IFL, Fóðurverksmiðjan Laxá, Hólaskóli, SR mjöl, the University of Akureyri and Brim fiskeldi.