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Global Salmon Study Shows 'Sustainable' Food May Not Be So Sustainable
Source: ENN,Science Daily, Date: , 2009
Popular
thinking about how to improve food systems for the better often misses
the point, according to the results of a three-year global study of
salmon production systems. Rather than pushing for organic or
land-based production, or worrying about simple metrics such as "food
miles," the study finds that the world can achieve greater environmental benefits by focusing on improvements to key aspects of production and distribution. For
example, what farmed salmon are fed, how wild salmon are caught and the
choice to buy frozen over fresh matters more than organic vs.
conventional or wild vs. farmed when considering global scale
environmental impacts such as climate change, ozone depletion, loss of critical habitat, and ocean acidification. The
study is the world's first comprehensive global-scale look at a major
food commodity from a full life cycle perspective, and the researchers
examined everything -- how salmon are caught in the wild, what they're
fed when farmed, how they're transported, how they're consumed, and how
all of this contributes to both environmental degradation and
socioeconomic benefits.
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