Economic Feasibility and Ecological Effects of Alternative Protein Feeds: Input Evidence and Subsequent Environmental Impacts of Fish and Other Farmed Animals

Abstract

The large-scale production of traditional fish and farmed animal feed is causing increasingly severe resource consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, and alternative protein feed is seen as a potential solution to alleviate the above environmental pressures. However, the existing technology and research are still immature in terms of environmental assessment methods and cost control systems. This paper discusses the economic feasibility and ecological effect of alternative protein feed, life cycle assessment and economic feasibility through integrated analysis. The results show that the core dilemmas faced by alternative protein feed at present include: due to the supply of raw materials and production scale, its cost competitiveness is still weaker than that of traditional feed; In terms of ecological effects, although the performance of greenhouse gas, land and water resources indicators is better than that of traditional protein, there are phenomena of environmental burden transfer such as energy consumption transfer, land occupation transfer and nutrient transfer; In addition, regulations and market access barriers also restrict its promotion. Overall, alternative proteins have shown economic potential in specific scenarios, but do not yet have the conditions to fully replace conventional feeds. Future research should focus on cost control, raw material selection, technological innovation and policy guidance to promote alternative protein feeds from experimental stage to large-scale application.