Four Fish Book Excerpt: Barramundi. The fish that could fulfill all the Green Revolution promises
From New York Times award-winning journalist Paul Greenberg, author of Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food. "Over the years, fish farming has gotten a bad rap and some of it is deserved. But the folks on the cutting edge of taming fish – people like Josh Goldman of Australis Aquaculture who grows barramundi in closed containment facilities – those people have as great, if not a greater concern about sustainability than anyone in the organic food movement."
From the book Four Fish: The Future of The Last Wild Food:
"If there is one person who has taken in all the lessons of the Israelis, the French, the Italians, and the Greeks in their quest to tame the European sea bass over the course of the last quarter century, it is Josh Goldman (CEO of Australis Aquaculture)...
...Goldman tested over fifty different species and looking further and further afield, each time finding some fatal flaw in the fish he investigated. But finally, at the dawn of the new millennium, he met an energetic Australian entrepreneur named Stewart Graham, who introduced him to a Southeast Asian fish <barramundi> that Goldman would soon learn met all his criteria.
...So at Turners Falls, Massachusetts, the site of one of the more tragic fish extirpations in contemporary history, the place where Connecticut River salmon were wiped off the face of the earth with a single dam, the possible reinvention of fish as food as we know it could be happening. An animal has been chosen specifically for its small ecological footprint and its natural tendency to adapt to human culture. A fish that could fulfill all the Green Revolution promises of the early days of ocean aquaculture. One that would truly generate more fish for the world than it would consume. One that could actually take pressure off wild stocks of similar species and cause humans to lessen their impact on the ocean overall."
Read the full PDF excerpt.
And watch this video of author, Paul Greenberg, on Bloomberg TV talking about the challenge of declining fish populations and eco-friendly choices we can make, as consumers.
Click here for an excerpt from Four Fish about Josh Goldman and Australis
