Aquaculture’s popularity growing globally says new report

Global aquaculture market, valued at $170 billion, seen as major driver of the food industry worldwide

By Fabian Dawson

SeaWestNews

The growing market for farmed fish and other aquaculture products underscores its growing popularity around the world as a sustainable solution to counter the decline and depletion of marine resources, says a new report.

Aquaculture will also prove to be a practical option to confronting issues related to food security and demand, said the report by BCC Research, which has a 45-year history of providing comprehensive analysis of global sustainability of businesses, economies and lives.

Underscoring the growing popularity of aquaculture, the report said that the global market for aquaculture products should reach $226.2 billion by 2022 from $169.9 billion in 2017 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.9%, from 2017 to 2022.

The salmon segment of global aquaculture products market is expected to grow from $14.2 billion in 2017 to $19.8 billion in 2022 at a CAGR of 6.9% for the period 2017-2022.

“Aquaculture is necessary for the cultivation of food that is rich in essential nutrients,” states the report’s author Karen Shah, who has 11 years of experience in industry research and market sizing.

“Aquaculture ensures the recycling of organic waste of human and livestock origin. From a macro-economic point of view, aquaculture utilizes land and aquatic resources, which benefits the whole society,” she wrote.

“Due to the high nutritional value of fish and other seafood, people have begun consuming them at a higher rate in the present times.

“Aquaculture also improves the standard of living—for many people, it provides a means of earning a living with maximum profitability. Significantly, it created surplus products for exports to different countries in the world. Thus, it promotes economic growth and stability.”

The BCC Research report also noted that food production sectors throughout the globe are struggling to meet the increased demand for food resulting from the increasing worldwide population that is expected to hit nine billion in the next 25 years.

“Aquaculture could easily help meet this demand while being one of the great sources of healthy food,” said Shah.

Aquaculture is the preferred option for many rural coastal communities whose traditional means of producing income has been through selling fish, which has been adversely affected due to overexploitation, the report said.

Small-scale aquaculture thus improves the social and economic conditions of such communities and thus helps the development of rural areas, said Shah.

“Despite the pros and cons, aquaculture is indeed a major driver of the food industry worldwide. This is quite clear from studies and market forecasts of the global market for aquaculture. The growing global market for aquaculture underscores its growing popularity,” the report concluded.

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization projects that aquaculture will account for two-thirds of the global food fish consumption by 2030.

According to the latest Statistics Canada data, Canadian seafood farmers produced $1.35 billion of fresh, nutritious seafood in 2016. Our farming and processing activities generated over $5 billion in economic activity, $2 billion in GDP, and more than 25,000 full-time jobs for Canadians earning an estimated $1.16 billion in wages in 2016, with significant Indigenous participation across the nation.

Over 40 First Nation and Indigenous communities are now directly or indirectly involved in farming seafood in Canada.