June 16, 2020

 

European aquaculture body highlights declining growth of global aquaculture

 

 

The Federation of European Aquaculture Producers (FEAP) expressed concern that the growth of aquaculture has declined, from up to 10% per year to only 2% in 2018.

 

The organisation's statement was made in response to the FAO's latest State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture (SOFIA) report. According to FEAP, SOFIA 2020 found that overall aquaculture harvest worldwide in 2018 was at an all-time record of 114.5 million tonnes.

 

Despite this achievement, "the global annual growth rate of aquaculture has greatly declined over the last years," FEAP said.

 

"After decades of 6% to 10% inter-annual growth rates, 2018 has seen an increase of only 2.0% over 2017. Two decades ago, Europe already walked that path in advance and, since the turn of the century, aquaculture production in almost all European countries has stagnated."

 

Causes for the slow growth were pinned on broader environmental regulations, reduced availability of water and suitable production locations, increasing outbreaks of aquatic animal diseases and decreasing aquaculture productivity gains.

 

Additionally, governance is becoming a critical factor affecting aquaculture expansion.

 

"Nevertheless, FAO recognises countries in which aquaculture production continues to grow, both developing (like Egypt, India, Indonesia, Vietnam or Bangladesh) and developed (like Norway or Chile)," FEAP said.

 

"The reasons for these exceptions are region dependent, but a trend is clear: in the twenty-first century, aquaculture growth requires political will to promote appropriate policies, strategies and private and public investment. Certainly, further technical issues have to be addressed on feeds, genetic selection, biosecurity, disease control, digital innovation and business developments. But from the European Union, we can showcase that solving these hurdles is clearly not enough. Even the adoption of aquaculture spatial planning or ecologically sound technological innovation are necessary but never sufficient."

 

FEAP added that implementing "general governance decisions" aimed at promoting aquaculture's development will be the "biggest challenge" the industry will face - an issue "European aquaculture producers can warn the rest of the world" about.

 

"An added problem is that public authorities and decision makers that are responsible for the creation and implementation of such general governance regulations will not read SOFIA 2020. Quite probably they will have never heard of it," FEAP said.

 

- The Fish Site