Fish waste in the fields to combat expensive fertilizers

Fish, shellfish and crustacean scraps to make tomatoes and spinach grow better.

A useful and green way to give 'new life' to the approximately 27 million tons of fish waste produced each year in the Mediterranean basin by the industry.

The fish that decompose in the soil, in fact, release beneficial substances such as ammonia, hydrogen sulphide, phosphorus, iodine, manganese.

Components that in recent months have reached inaccessible costs, with double-digit increases.

Suffice it to say that in 2021, as The Circle, the largest aquaponic farm on the European continent, informs us, Italy imported 65 million euros of fertilizers from Russia, a country that satisfies 13% of the world market, 20 million from Belarus. and 55 million from Ukraine.

This is just one of the many uses that fish waste can have in agriculture, so much so that today it is the online purchasing platforms that offer different solutions for this kind of fertilization, but there is always a web for those who dispense advice to make emulsions at home. of fish.

But it is not only industry that contributes to the creation of alternative fertilizers, because according to Fedagripesca-Confcooperative, a concrete contribution could also come from professional fishing.

In fact, since 2014, the European Union has required fishermen to bring to land those fish that once had to be thrown into the sea because they were too small to be marketed.

These are mostly sardines, anchovies, mackerel and horse mackerel, but also mullet and cod which could be processed into feed but also into cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and food additives.

"The important thing - explains the association - is to guarantee a commercial outlet for these little fish that cannot be destined for human consumption, feeding a green supply chain that is increasingly important today".