Aquaculture Breakthrough

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This looks like good news:

Scientists close on Omega 3 'Holy Grail'

By Sean Murphy for Landline

Australian researchers believe they may have solved one of the most pressing food supply problems of the 21st century by breeding canola containing the same omega 3 oils found in fish.

As genetic modification goes it is a simple marriage of oil-rich marine algae and the easily grown canola seed crop, but its implications for global aquaculture are immense.

Most farmed fish species such as salmon, barramundi and kingfish need to eat fish to contain the sort of long-chain fatty acids which make them essential for a healthy human diet.

Aquaculture is the fastest-growing protein production sector in the food industry and already accounts for half of the fish consumed globally. By 2050 an additional 70 million tonnes will be required at the same time as wild caught stocks are predicted to be in severe decline.

The so-called Omega 3 Project is part of the CSIRO's Food Futures Flagship, which aims to add up to $3 billion to Australia's agrifood sector through frontier technology such as plant science.

Team member James Petrie says the next phase of its work will be to replicate its success with canola in a large-scale on-farm trial.

"We've got proof of concept, so what that means is we have proven a canola plant or a flax plant - an oil plant - is actually capable of making these long-chain omega 3 oils in the seed and building them up to relatively good levels," he said.

"What we've got to do now is take it out of the lab and onto the farm."

Mr Petrie says successfully growing genetically modified (GM) canola with the long-chain fatty acids, which boost brain development and cardiovascular health in humans, will have huge commercial implications.

"There is large potential for adding enriched food ingredients to bread, milk, orange juice, food in the processing sector," he said.

"But we're actually hoping the plant oils that we produce sustainably from these oil seeds are going to have enough of the EPA and DHA [nutritional components] to satisfy the growth requirements of aquaculture specifics."

The CSIRO's head of aquaculture research, Dr Brett Glencross, says if successful, the Omega 3 team will have achieved the "holy grail" of aquaculture.

He says the industry currently relies on limited supplies of fish meal and fish oil and there has been an international scientific quest to find alternatives.

"Australian aquaculture already supports a population of about 60 to 100 million people even though we're a country of only 20 to 25 million," he said.

"So what I see Australia doing in the future is providing resources, this time fish feed resources, to sustain that future growth of fish worldwide and particularly in the Asian region."

The Omega 3 project may still take 10 to 15 years to reach commercial production but in the meantime, Australian researchers are at the forefront of new aquaculture feed development, blending fish oil with plant and animal oils from farmed species such as poultry.

The full report on this groundbreaking research will be screened on ABC TV's Landline program this Sunday from 12:00pm.