-
So I come from the tallest
people on the planet --
-
the Dutch.
-
(Laughter)
-
It hasn't always been this way.
-
In fact,
-
all across the globe, people
have been gaining height.
-
In the last 150 years,
-
in developed countries,
-
on average, we have gotten
10 centimeters taller.
-
And scientists have a lot
of theories about why this is,
-
but almost all of them involve nutrition
-
and in the increase of dairy and meat.
-
In the last 50 years,
-
global meat consumption
has more than quadrupled,
-
from 71 million tons to 310 million tons.
-
Something similar has been
going on with milk and eggs.
-
In every society where incomes have risen,
so has protein consumption.
-
And we know that globally,
we are getting richer.
-
And as the middle class is on the rise,
so is our global population,
-
from 7 billion of us today
to 9.7 billion by 2050,
-
which means that by 2050,
-
we are going to need at least
70 percent more protein
-
than what is available to humankind today.
-
And the latest prediction of the UN
puts that population number,
-
by the end of this century,
-
at 11 billion,
-
which means that we are going
to need a lot more protein.
-
This challenge is staggering --
-
so much so that recently,
-
a team at Anglia Ruskin
Global Sustainability Institute
-
suggested that if we don't
change our global policies
-
and food production systems,
-
our societies might actually collapse
in the next 30 years.
-
Currently, our ocean serves
as the main source of animal protein.
-
Over 2.6 billion people
depend on it every single day.
-
At the same time,
-
our global fisheries are
two-and-a-half-times larger
-
than what our oceans
can sustainably support,
-
meaning that humans take
far more fish from the ocean
-
than the oceans can naturally replace.
-
WWF recently published a report
showing that just in the last 40 years,
-
our global marine life
has been slashed in half.
-
And another recent report suggests
that of our largest predatory species,
-
such as swordfish and bluefin tuna,
-
over 90 percent has
disappeared since the 1950s.
-
And there are a lot of great, sustainable
fishing initiatives across the planet,
-
working towards better practices
and better-managed fisheries.
-
But ultimately,
-
all of these initiatives are working
towards keeping current catch constant.
-
It's unlikely,
-
even with the best-managed fisheries,
-
that we are going to be able
-
to take much more from the ocean
than we do today.
-
We have to stop plundering
our oceans the way we have.
-
We need to alleviate the pressure on it.
-
And we are at point
-
where if we push much harder
for more produce,
-
we might face total collapse.
-
Our current systems are not going to feed
a growing global population.
-
So how do we fix this?
-
What's the world going to look like
in just 35 short years
-
when there's 2.7 billion more of us
sharing the same resources?
-
We could all become vegan.
-
Sounds like a great idea,
-
but it's not realistic
-
and it's impossibly hard
to mandate globally.
-
People are eating animal protein
whether we like it or not.
-
And suppose we fail to change our ways
-
and continue on the current paths,
-
failing to meet demands.
-
The World Health Organization
recently reported
-
that 800 million people are suffering
from malnutrition and food shortage,
-
which is due to that same
growing, global population
-
and the declining access to resources
like water, energy and land.
-
It takes very little imagination
-
to picture a world of global unrest,
[ riot? ] and further malnutrition.
-
People are hungry,
-
and we are running dangerously low
on natural resources.
-
For so, so many reasons,
-
we need to change our global
food production systems.
-
We must do better
-
and there is a solution.
-
And that solution lies in aquaculture --
-
the farming of fish, plants like seaweed,
shellfish and crustaceans.
-
As the great ocean hero
Jacques Cousteau once said,
-
"We must start using the sea
as farmers instead of hunters.
-
That is what civilization is all about --
-
farming replacing hunting."
-
Fish is the last food that we hunt.
-
And why is it that we keep
hearing phrases like,
-
"Life's too short for farmed fish,"
-
or, "wild-caught, of course,"
-
over fish that we know
virtually nothing about?
-
We don't know [what they do?]
in its lifetime,
-
and we don't know what
pollution it encounters,
-
and if it was a large predatory species,
-
it might have gone through
the coast of Fukushima yesterday,
-
we don't know.
-
Very few people realize
-
the traceability in fisheries
-
never goes beyond the hunter
that caught the wild animal.
-
But let's back up for a second
-
and talk about why fish
is the best food choice.
-
It's healthy,
-
it prevents heart disease,
-
it provides key amino acids
-
and key fatty acids like Omega-3s,
-
which is very different from almost
any other type of meat,
-
and aside from being healthy,
-
it's also a lot more exciting and diverse.
-
Think about it.
-
Most animal farming is pretty monotonous.
-
Cow is cow,
-
sheep is sheep,
-
pig's pig,
-
and poultry --
-
turkey, duck, chicken --
-
pretty much sums it up.
-
And then there's 500 species of fish
being found currently ...
-
not that [restaurants] and supermarkets
reflect that on their shelves,
-
but that's beside that point.
-
And you can farm fish
in a very healthy manner
-
that's good for us, good for the planet
and good for the fish.
-
I know I sound fish-obsessed --
-
(Laughter)
-
Let me explain.
-
My brilliant partner and wife --
-
Amy Novograntz and I got involved
in aquaculture a couple of years ago.
-
We were inspired by Sylvia Earle,
-
who won the TED prize in 2009.
-
We actually met on Mission Blue I
in the Galapagos.
-
Amy was there as the TED Prize Director.
-
Me an entrepreneur from the Netherlands,
-
concerned citizen, love to dive,
passion for the oceans.
-
Mission Blue truly changed our lives.
-
We fell in love,
-
got married,
-
and we came away really inspired,
-
thinking we really want to do something
about ocean conservation --
-
something that was meant to last,
-
that could make a real difference,
-
and something that we could do together.
-
Little did we expect that that would
lead us to fish farming.
-
But a few months after
we got off the boat,
-
we got to a meeting
at Conservation International
-
where the Director General of world fish
was talking about aquaculture,
-
asking a room full of environmentalists
to stop turning from it,
-
realize what was going on,
-
and to really get involved
-
because aquaculture has the potential
-
to be just what our oceans
and populations need.
-
We were stunned when we heard the stats
-
that we didn't know more
about this industry already,
-
and excited about the chance
to help get it right.
-
And to talk about stats --
-
right now, the amount of fish
consumed globally,
-
wild-catch and farmed combined,
-
is twice the tonnage
-
of the total amount of beef
produced on planet Earth last year.
-
Every single fishing vessel combined,
-
small and large,
-
across the globe,
-
together produce about
65 million tons of wild-caught seafood
-
for human consumption.
-
Aquaculture this year,
-
for the first time in history,
-
actually produces more than what
we catch from the wild.
-
But now this.
-
Demand is going to go up.
-
In the next 35 years
-
we are going to need an additional
85 million tons to meet demand,
-
which is one-and-a-half times as much --
-
almost --
-
as what we catch globally
out of our oceans.
-
An enormous number.
-
It's safe to assume that that's not
going to come from the ocean.
-
It needs to come from farming.
-
And talk about farming --
-
and for farming you need resources.
-
As a human needs to eat
to grow and stay alive,
-
so does an animal.
-
A cow needs to eat
eight-to-nine pounds of feed
-
and drink almost 8,000 liters of water
-
to create just one pound of meat.
-
Experts agree that it's impossible
-
to farm cows for every
inhabitant on this planet.
-
We just don't have enough feed or water.
-
And we can't keep cutting down
rainforests for it.
-
And fresh water --
-
planet Earth has a very limited supply.
-
We need something more efficient
-
to keep humankind alive on this planet.
-
And now let's compare
that with fish farming.
-
You can farm one pound of fish
with just one pound of feed,
-
and depending on species, even less.
-
And why is that?
-
Well that's because
fish first of all, float.
-
They don't need to stand around all day
resisting gravity like we do.
-
And most fish are cold-blooded -
-
they don't need to heat themselves --
-
the fish chills.
-
(Laughter)
-
And it needs very little water,
-
which is counterintuitive,
-
but as we say,
-
it swims in it but it hardly drinks it.
-
Fish are the most resource-efficient
animal protein available to humankind
-
aside from insects.
-
How much we've learned since.
-
For example,
-
that on top of that 65 million tons
-
that's annually caught
for human consumption,
-
there's an additional 30 million tons
caught for animal feed.
-
Mostly sardines and anchovies
for the aquaculture industry
-
that's turned into fish meal and fish oil.
-
This is madness.
-
65 percent of these fisheries,
globally are badly managed.
-
Some of the worst issues
of our time are connected to it.
-
It's destroying our oceans.
-
The worst slavery issues
imaginable are connected to it.
-
Recently, an article came out of Stamford
-
saying that if 50 percent
of the world's aquaculture industry
-
would stop using fish meal,
-
our oceans would be saved.
-
Now think about that for a minute.
-
Now we know that the oceans
have far more problems ...
-
they have pollution,
-
there's acidification,
-
coral reef destruction and so on.
-
But it underlines the impact
of our fisheries,
-
and it underlines how
interconnected everything is.
-
Fisheries, aquaculture, deforestation,
-
climate change, food security and so on.
-
In the search for alternatives,
-
the industry --
-
at a massive scale --
-
has reverted to plant-based alternatives
-
like soy, industrial chicken waste,
-
blood meal from slaughter houses,
-
and so on.
-
And we understand where
these choices come from
-
but this is not the right approach.
-
It's not sustainable,
-
it's not healthy.
-
Have you ever seen a chicken
at the bottom of the ocean?
-
Of course not.
-
If you feed salmon soy with nothing else,
-
it literally explodes.
-
Salmon is a carnivore,
-
it has no way to digest soy.
-
Now fish farming is by far
-
the best animal farming
available to humankind.
-
But it's had a really bad reputation.
-
There's been excessive use of chemicals,
-
there's been virus and disease
transfered to wild populations,
-
ecosystem destruction and pollution,
-
escaped fish breeding
with wild populations,
-
altering the overall genetic pool,
-
and then of course,
-
as just mentioned,
-
the unsustainable feed ingredients.
-
How blessed were the days
-
when we could just enjoy
food that was on our plate,
-
whatever it was.
-
Once you know, you know.
-
You can't go back.
-
It's not [fine?].
-
We really need a transparent food
system that we can trust,
-
that produces healthy food.
-
But the good news is
-
that decades of development and research
-
have led to lots of new
technologies and knowledge
-
that allow us to do a lot better.
-
We can now farm fish
without any of these issues.
-
I think of agriculture
before the green revolution --
-
we are at aquaculture,
in a blue revolution.
-
New technologies means
-
that we can now produce a feed
that's perfectly natural,
-
with a minimal footprint
-
that consists of microbes, insects,
seaweeds and microalgae.
-
Healthy for the people,
-
healthy for the fish,
-
healthy for the planet.
-
Microbes for example
-
can be a perfect alternative
for high-grade fish meal --
-
at scale.
-
Insects are the --
-
well first of all,
-
the perfect recycling because
they're grown on food waste --
-
but second,
-
think of fly-fishing
-
and you know how logical
it actually is to use it as fish feed.
-
You don't need large
[tracks?] of land for it
-
and you don't need
to cut down rainforests for it.
-
Microbes and insects are actually
net water producers.
-
This revolution is starting as we speak,
-
it just needs scale.
-
We can now farm far more
species than ever before.
-
And controlled, natural
conditions create happy fish.
-
I imagine for example,
-
a closed system that's performing
more efficiently than insect farming,
-
where you can produce
healthy, happy, delicious fish
-
with little or no [affluent?],
-
almost no energy,
-
and almost no water --
-
and a natural feed
with a minimal footprint ...
-
or a system where you grow
up to 10 species next to each other --
-
off of each other --
-
mimicking nature.
-
You need very little feed,
-
very little footprint.
-
I think of seaweed growing
off the [affluent?] of fish for example.
-
There's great technologies
popping up all over the globe.
-
From alternatives to battle disease,
-
so we don't need antibiotics
and chemicals anymore,
-
to automated feeders that feel
when the fish are hungry
-
so we can save on feed
and create less pollution.
-
[So far, systems?] gather
data across farms
-
so we can improve farm practices.
-
There's really cool stuff
happening all over the globe.
-
And make no mistake,
-
all of these things are possible
-
at a cost that's competitive
to what a farmer spends today.
-
Tomorrow, there will be no excuse
for anyone to not do the right thing.
-
So somebody needs to connect the dots
-
and give these developments
a big kick in the butt,
-
and that's what we've been
working on the last couple of years
-
and that's what we need
to be working on together ...
-
rethinking everything from the ground up
-
with a holistic view
across the value chain,
-
connecting all these things
across the globe
-
alongside great entrepreneurs
-
that are willing to share
a collective vision.
-
Now is the time to create
change in this industry
-
and to push it into
a sustainable direction.
-
This industry is still young,
-
much of its growth is still ahead.
-
It's a big task,
-
but not as far-fetched as you might think.
-
It's possible.
-
So we need to take pressure off the ocean.
-
We want to eat good and healthy,
-
and if we eat an animal,
-
it needs to be one that had
a happy and healthy life.
-
We need to have a meal that we can trust,
-
live long lives --
-
and this is not just for people
in San Francisco or northern Europe,
-
this is for all of us.
-
Even in the poorest countries,
-
it's not just about money.
-
People prefer something fresh
and healthy that they can trust
-
over something that comes from far away
that they know nothing about.
-
We're all the same.
-
The day will come
where people will realize
-
and demand farmed fish on the plate,
-
that's farmed well
and that's farmed healthy,
-
and refuse anything less.
-
You can help speed this up.
-
Ask questions when you order seafood.
-
Where does my fish come from?
-
Who raised it,
-
and what did it eat?
-
Information about where
your fish comes from
-
and how it was produced
-
needs to be much more readily available.
-
And consumers need to put pressure
on the aquaculture industry
-
to do the right thing.
-
So every time you order,
-
ask for detail
-
and show that you really care
about what you eat
-
and what's been given to you.
-
And eventually they will listen,
-
and all of us will benefit.
-
Thank you.
-
(Applause)