This was originally published by The Aquaculture Accountability Project.
How the Fish Farming Industry Sold a False Promise of Saving the Oceans
For decades, industrial aquaculture has been framed as a win-win: farm fish to spare wild fisheries, reduce environmental harm, and meet global demand with a healthy, efficient protein. This narrative—popularized as the industry’s “Blue Revolution”—has profoundly shaped policy, conservation strategies, and institutional purchasing decisions.
This report examines what that story leaves out: that, through greenwashing, aquaculture has brought factory farming from land to sea. Across five central claims that anchor “sustainable seafood” messaging, it shows how industrial fish farming has expanded at a scale that inherently drives ecological harm by intensifying pressure on wild fisheries, spreading disease and drug dependence, worsening climate impacts, and leaning on labels and certifications that often substitute for real accountability.
The Myth of “Sustainable” Aquaculture is a report by the Aquaculture Accountability Project in collaboration with Farm Forward.
Note: While the term “aquaculture” can refer to many different species, finfish and shrimp farming dominate the global market and account for the vast majority of the ecological and public health risks described here. Plant-based aquaculture systems such as seaweed and kelp farming, on the other hand, offer unique environmental benefits, which is why they are not part of the myths explored here.
Myth 1 | Fish Farming Reduces Pressure on Wild Fisheries
Reality: Using wild fish for feed exacerbates overfishing
Rather than easing pressure on wild fisheries, fish farming exacerbates it. Raising popular farmed species like salmon requires large volumes of wild-caught forage fish ground into feed. When full inputs are accounted for, this system is deeply inefficient: farmed salmon can require up to five times more wild fish by weight than the fish produced, resulting in a net loss of marine protein. The industry minimizes this reality through selective metrics, masking how aquaculture intensifies—rather than solves—overfishing.
Myth 2 | Fish Farming Meets a Growing Demand for Seafood
Reality: The industry engineers unsustainable demand for seafood
Animal aquaculture is often framed as a response to demand, but its growth has driven overconsumption instead of replacing wild-caught fish. Through manipulating policymakers and using deceptive marketing, producers transformed once-occasional foods like salmon into everyday staples. This expansion locked in higher fish consumption, particularly in wealthy countries, driving more fishing, more farming, and greater ecological strain while presenting growth itself as a solution.
Myth 3 | Farmed Fish Is a Healthy Ocean Protein
Reality: Crowded farms breed disease, drug use, and antibiotic resistance
Industrial fish and shrimp farms confine hundreds of thousands of animals in dense pens or ponds where waste, parasites, and pathogens spread easily. To keep these systems operating, producers rely heavily on antibiotics and chemicals critical to human medicine, fueling the global antimicrobial resistance crisis. With limited testing and oversight, products contaminated with banned drugs and drug-resistant bacteria can reach consumers, undermining claims of “clean” or “healthy” protein.
“Limited testing paired with the ubiquity of antibiotic use in aquaculture suggests that large quantities of fish and shrimp containing illegal residues may be entering the U.S. undetected. Supporting this conclusion, a study out of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, found that 70 percent of retail samples of farmed shrimp tested positive for residues of nitrofurantoin, an illegal antibiotic.”
Myth 4 | Farmed Fish Is a Climate-Smart Food
Reality: Fish farming intensifies the climate crisis and destroys carbon sinks
Once feed production, energy use, and high mortality are fully counted, farmed fish often rival or exceed other animal proteins in climate impact—and are far more carbon-intensive than plant-based foods. Aquaculture also weakens critical natural carbon sinks by depleting forage fish who support ocean carbon storage and by driving mangrove destruction for shrimp farming, compounding its climate footprint.
“Life cycle analyses estimate that farmed shrimp can emit upwards of 26 kg CO₂-eq/kg. This suggests that farmed shrimp is among the most GHG-intensive sea animal products on the market, and its emissions often exceed those of pork, poultry, and even bottom-trawled wild shrimp.”
Myth 5 | Certifications and Labels Ensure Sustainability
Reality: Labels function as greenwashing, not accountability
Sustainability certifications and consumer guides are widely treated as proof that farmed fish and shellfish are responsible. However—despite the good-faith efforts of many working to improve certifications—they rely on weak standards, limited audits, and industry funding, creating incentives to certify harmful practices rather than restrict them. These labels offer reassurance without transparency, allowing industrial aquaculture to expand behind the appearance of oversight.
Where Do We Go from Here?
The harms described in this report are structural consequences of producing fish at industrial scale. At today’s volumes, neither farming fish nor catching them can deliver ecological sustainability.
True ocean protection requires moving beyond the illusion of “sustainable seafood.” The most effective solution entails reducing overall sea animal production and consumption, especially in the Global North; phasing out the highest-impact farmed species, particularly salmon and shrimp; and no longer relying on greenwashing labels as substitutes for real change.
The full report details the evidence behind these conclusions and outlines a path toward food systems that genuinely protect oceans, climate, and public health.