Episode 25 - Riding the wave: How shifting oceans shape our food

Angelo (00:00)
In the future because of climate change and ice melting and permafrost thawing, then it could become more accessible. We can imagine a rush to occupy these territories, and that could have implications in terms of increase in the amount of ships going there and therefore the probability of pollution accidents and other sorts of accidents.

Intro (00:32)  
Science on the menu.
A podcast by the European Food Safety Authority.

Ed (00:42)  
Hello and welcome to another episode of Science on the menu. 
My name is Ed Bray and I work in the communications team at the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). 
Joining me today is Angelo Maggiore. 
You work in the Explore Team at EFSA. That sounds very exciting. We're going to find out what that is. And welcome to the podcast, Angelo.

Angelo (01:04)  
Thank you very much, Ed, for inviting me and trying to stretch the boundaries of my comfort zone here with you today.

Ed  (01:11)  
Well, let's do that. 
And talking about boundaries, we're talking about limitless boundaries today. We're talking about the oceans. I find this a really fascinating topic and people might ask - oceans and food safety: what's the connection there?
Well, let's find out. You've been working on a fascinating report. Before we get to that, tell us about the Explore team at EFSA. What is that? What do you do? 

Angelo (01:31)  
In particular what we are looking at is what's going on around EFSA in terms of economic developments, technological developments, environmental developments, of course, climate change in particular. I would say that we are trying to do that not only looking at a short-term horizon ahead of us, but also a little bit longer in time, decades, ten, 20, 30 years, what's going to happen around us in 2050, for example.
We are going to implement foresight methodologies and foresight approaches to explore the world around us.

Ed (02:11)  
Your report was looking into this and three of the potential areas that you were looking at were mining, trade and aquaculture. Tell us about those elements that you were looking at in the report.

Angelo (02:25)  
First of all, it's important, I think, to mention the importance of sea transport and trade, because maybe it's not very obvious that most of the transport of goods happens in the sea.
Most of it, like 90% at a global level. At EU level, a little bit less. We are talking about these new routes which could become more and more important in the future in the context of climate change, which is the Northern Sea route, which at the moment is not completely accessible because of the ice cover, but in the future, because of climate change and ice melting and permafrost thawing, then it could become more accessible.
We can imagine a rush to occupy these territories, and that could have implications in terms of increase in the number of ships going there and therefore the probability of pollution accidents and other sorts of accidents. Another example is the use of a ballast water. It’s used to stabilize the ships and then it’s discharged to the sea.
This ballast water contains a lot of micro-organisms, viruses, bacteria and algae that could become invasive to the recipient environment so that the problem of invasive species transported by this ballast water is quite relevant, in particular in a very sensitive ecosystem.

Ed (03:55)  
Another area that could also impact on biodiversity as well, and you talk about this in the report is sea mining.
Tell us a little bit about that. 

Angelo (04:06)  
Sea mining is a new frontier. At the moment, we are still at exploratory level most of the time, so we are still exploring the bottom of the sea in order to see where we can find three categories of minerals, because that's what we are looking for.

Ed (04:24)  
Minerals to be used in in our economy, in our phones, in our technology. That's what we're looking for.

Angelo (04:32)  
That's correct. We are moving from the fossil fuel age to the minerals age. It's always based on extraction and resources, so it's always about extraction, but now we are moving towards the extraction of minerals. 
Where can you find minerals? On land, but also at the bottom of the of the sea. In view of this expansion of digitalization and electrification we need to find possible solutions. And going to the deep ocean is a possibility. 
The deep ocean is a very sensitive environment again. And what you need to do is to go there with huge machines and excavate. When you do that, you provoke a big storm of sediment, let's say, and at the bottom. This can have some effect in terms of implications to filtering organisms, but they could also stimulate the growth of toxic algae producing bio toxins.
In general, it's a heavy disturbance to marine organisms so the environmental impact is still largely understudied. We need to still study it considering also possible implications for seafood safety.

Ed (05:53)  
Basically, what you're saying that the planet is becoming a lot smaller. We're affecting all areas of our planet now. What changes will this have?

Angelo (06:02)  
I can try to provide some numbers to understand the potential of food production from the ocean.
Consider that at the moment the percentage of protein extracted from the sea is like 15% of the protein we consume, a very limited amount. If we think in terms of total calories, is 2%. In terms of a biomass photosynthetic biomass, it's 1%.
But they have the potential of a primary production of 50%. So, 50% of the total primary production on the Earth occurs in the oceans. But still, we use 15% of the proteins and 2% of the calories from the ocean.

Ed (06:51)  
A massive potential!

Angelo (06:53)  
That means that the potential is very huge and at the moment still largely unexploited, let's say.
It's quite natural that we try to go in that direction and to increase the amount of proteins, but in general calories, which is not only proteins taken from the sea, not only for food purposes, but also for feed purposes. And that's where we are moving, also with the support of innovative aquaculture practices. We have designed some possible scenarios of potential developments of aquaculture.
You can find it in the report. Particularly interesting is the use of artificial intelligence in aquaculture and again digitalization which could help you, for example, installing cameras to check the behaviour of fishes in the cages and to immediately identify possible diseases.

Ed (07:53)  
And the oceans are more to us than just economic value, aren't they?
Is there also a competing interest here, which is the psychological interest in the ocean for humans?

Angelo (08:04)  
Absolutely. I think that's the difficulty that we need to handle when expanding the uses of the oceans. The oceans have a very strong cultural value, emotional connection with people and consider, for example, that you have kids and you know that if you want to calm them down a little bit you put them in a blue environment.
That's also why I'm wearing blue to get calmer today.

Ed (08:36)  
Right! And without even thinking about it, we've colour coordinated today and I'm in blue as well. So, we were both thinking about blue for calming us and for the colour of the oceans today.

Angelo (08:48)  
And I think that's the main message. I would like to take the chance of this podcast today that we need to integrate these considerations together now, because it's the decade where we are designing how the future oceans will look like we need to consider that there are strong implications that it may have on food and food safety and also on human well-being and on the environment together with, of course, the economic opportunities that these offer.

Ed (09:20)  
I wanted to touch on one more economic opportunity or economic importance of the oceans, and that’s communication lines that are put in pipes in the seabed. Is that right?
Many of us don't think about it, but when we're using the Internet or other communication tools, there are connectivity issues and we solve this by lines going under the ocean seafloor.

Angelo (09:45)  
Yes, absolutely. That's a very interesting aspect. I wasn't aware of that either. It was a surprise when developing the project to see that 99% of Internet traffic passes through the sea. 
That allows us to send an email in New York and after seconds or even less maybe we receive it on the other side of the world.
It's very interesting to see the maps of these underwater cables. There is a very intense network of cables down there which makes the sea also strategically important.

Ed (10:31)  
On a geopolitical level.

Angelo (10:32)  
On a geopolitical level yes, but that was clear since the 14th century. There was a saying stating that who rules the sea rules the world. That was an Ottoman soldier saying that and we are talking about 14th century, but today even more, the big empires are based on ruling the sea.

Ed (10:58)  
And that's what's happening right now with the economic interest going into different areas, etcera.

Angelo (11:04)  
Yes, that's why now the risk is higher. The sea is acquiring more and more geopolitical relevance.

Ed (11:14)  
All these things, again, could potentially impact our food supply and the safety of our food.

Angelo (11:20)  
Absolutely. Indeed, talking about potential for conflict, in the report we have also discussed the issue of weapons that are abandoned and in particular those coming after the first and Second World War, which were abandoned at the bottom of the Baltic Sea.
That's very risky, not only for the safety of sailors, but also in terms of risks for seafood safety.
TNT is very famous (trinitrotoluene); It's an explosive and it's been found in flatfish. More than 50% of the fish which is collected close to this area is contaminated by this explosive.
We still don't know how relevant this is for human health. It's something that we should explore.
There are some well-known areas, particularly in the Baltic where the potential for bioaccumulation of these explosive is so high that sometimes you use the amount of contamination in fish just to identify these deposits of abandoned weapons and explosives.

Ed (12:38)  
They’re like a measure.

Angelo (12:39)  
We use the fish to get closer and closer.
Gradients in fish contamination to identify to spot the location of these sites.

Ed (12:49)  
So the sea itself and the oceans are like a measure of previous activity and also of pollution, etcetera. We can see it within the fish themselves.

Angelo (13:01)  
So now we have to consider that the ocean is going to be used more and more for provision of food and feed. 
We have to be particularly careful in contributing to the health of the ocean. That's the main message I would like to give.

Ed (13:25)  
Well, let's finish on that final message. Thank you very much, Angelo for joining us.

Angelo (13:30)  
Thank you very much.

Ed (13:32)  
Thanks again to everyone for listening to another episode of Science on the Menu. 
Please subscribe to our podcast, rate, it like it, share it and you can find our previous episodes of the podcast on our website. 
But for now, that's it from me. Thank you very much. 
See you next time on Science on the Menu.
Goodbye.

Outro (13:54)