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3.4 Aquaculture

Overview of aquaculture

Aquaculture is the farming of aquatic organisms (e.g. fish, molluscs) under controlled conditions; it is an alternative to catching wild fish and takes place in both inland and marine areas. Marine aquaculture production has been increasing in Europe (EEA-39) since the early 1990s, mostly due to growing salmon production in Norway (EEA, 2018). For the same period, inland aquaculture has been relatively stable (EEA, 2018). In 2017, EU production of both inland and marine aquaculture was almost 1.5 million tons with a production value of approximately 5 billion EUR (Eurostat, 2019). Overall, though, aquaculture in the EU is of relatively small importance compared to other economic sectors and to other parts of the world (Guillen et al., 2019). In 2017, the production of finfish (particularly, salmon, trout, seabass, carp, and tuna) and molluscs (mussels, oysters and clams) accounted together for almost the entire aquaculture production by weight in the EU (Eurostat 2019). Aquaculture of freshwater fish accounts for about 23 % of total production and is thus smaller than molluscs and crustaceans (ca. 50 %) and marine fish (ca. 27 %) (EC, 2015).