Brussels gives a welcome shot in the arm to European aquaculture

Despite a broad diversity of finfish and shellfish species production, almost all of which is consumed in the EU, the bloc’s aquaculture industry has long struggled to ramp up its overall harvest. According to the latest European Commission figures, 24 percent of EU seafood consumption is farmed product. In terms of per capita consumption, this equates to 5.54 kilograms (kg). Yet just 43 percent of the aquaculture products consumed in the EU are produced by its member states.

In total, the EU harvests around 1.25 million metric tons (MT) of aquaculture products each year, making it the eighth-biggest producer in the world. This output has a combined value of EUR 3.6 billion (USD 4.1 billion), which is only about 4 percent of the global total.

Alongside the sector’s red-tape burdens, getting access to space and high-quality water continues to provide one of the biggest barriers to European aquaculture expansion. However, through its increased pro-aquaculture stance, brought by its new Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), the commission has launched a new EUR 3.2 million (USD 3.6 million), three-year project, aimed at providing increased space and water to producers.

Called “AquaSpace – Ecosystem Approach to making Space for Sustainable Aquaculture,” it adopts the FAO’s Ecosystem Approach to Aquaculture (EAA) and Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) to deliver food security and increased employment opportunities through economic growth, said Marta Iglesias of the European Commission DG RTD.

The project is part of Horizon 2020, the EU’s EUR 80 billion (USD 90.7 billion) research and innovation program that began in 2014 and is aimed at securing Europe's global competitiveness.

AquaSpace has the involvement of U.S. and Canadian authorities, with Norway perhaps also participating, said Iglesias.

The three pillars of EAA are ecological sustainability, social equality and harmonization of multiple users. The project’s hope is to achieve this aim by identifying key constraints experienced by ventures in a wide range of contexts and aquaculture types. These constraints will then be mapped against a variety of tools and methods that have also been developed in national and EU projects for spatial planning purposes, including some that have been designed specifically for aquaculture.

Using 16 case study sites with a range of key space-related development constraints, it will assess appropriate tools using a common process. The project will develop outcomes that will lead to a set of evaluated tools for facilitating the aquaculture planning process, explained Iglesias. It’s expected that this information will be presented on a web-based platform with tailored entry points for specific user types – planners, farmers, public – to enable them to navigate to the tools most appropriate to their application.

AquaSpace is also expected to provide valuable support for the commission’s five-year “Diversify” and “Fishboost” research programs, both of which got under way last year.

Diversify has identified six new or emerging finfish species that offer the greatest potential to expand EU aquaculture. The species being studied comprise meagre (Argyrosomus regius), greater amberjack (Seriola dumerili), wreckfish (Polyprion americanus), Atlantic halibut (Hippoglossus hippoglossus), grey mullet (Mugli cephalus) and pikeperch (Sander lucioperca). Each has been chosen because of its fast growth and potential to be processed into a range of consumer products. 

Fishboost, meanwhile, aims to improve the efficiency and profitability of the industry through the selective breeding of six key finfish species:  Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar), common carp (Cyprinus carpio), European sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax), Gilthead sea bream (Sparus aurata), rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) and turbot (Scophthalmus maximus).

With these and other pro-aquaculture projects, there’s renewed belief that European aquaculture can at long last start to broaden its horizons after more than a decade of stagnation.

 

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