In the current context of war, post-pandemic, climate change, socioeconomic and financial uncertainty, and the use of finite natural resources, the global challenge of feeding more than 9 billion people by 2050 has become a complex UN objective, positioning aquaculture as the most efficient and viable animal production method to address the challenges of nutrition and food security.
In 1987, the United Nations Brundtland Commission defined sustainability as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”¹ However, these needs must encompass three fundamental pillars for the well-being of individuals and societies: economic development, social inclusion, and environmental protection.
Therefore, aquaculture should not only intensify its production for short-term growth and individual economic profit, but should provide distributed and equitable growth, creating more and better job opportunities and social inclusion, while ensuring integrated management of natural resources and ecosystems.
How can aquaculture be sustainable in these three pillars?
Social and Economic Pillars
Aquaculture has proven to be a revitalizing economic force in many coastal communities worldwide, especially in areas where sustainable economic development is difficult to implement.
According to the FAO report, 20.7 million people are involved in the primary sector of aquaculture production alone, of which 28% are women. However, the report shows that small producers are still vulnerable, with sometimes precarious working conditions.2 It is therefore urgent to build a strong and well-regulated sector globally, allowing for more and better working conditions at the local level. Indeed, access to safe, quality, nutritionally complete, and affordable food is fundamental to building a fairer society and is possible through aquaculture. Being able to produce animal protein locally, such as fish, is fundamental to human health and allows communities that produce this food to improve primary processing capacity and ensure fresh, high-quality products.
A developed and strong aquaculture sector promotes other employment opportunities beyond production: in the processing and manufacturing of fish into value-added products (canned and frozen products), in commerce, as well as in industries manufacturing feed and equipment, among others. Furthermore, aquaculture generates year-round employment, which is a very relevant factor, for example, in the Algarve, a region that houses the largest number of aquaculture farms in the country and where most employment is generated by tourism and is therefore seasonal in nature. It is worth noting that in Portugal, in 2020, aquaculture employed 1162 workers in 458 companies, and that, together with fishing, it fueled sectors such as fish preparation and canning, feed, sales and retail – which together employed approximately 16,500 workers and generated a turnover of around 2.7 million euros.
The growth of aquaculture in the future will be achieved through increased operations, both on land and at sea, and the sustainable intensification of cultivation processes, based on technological development and modernization. In more industrialized countries, the technological and scientific system has become essential for the advancement of the industry.
Government incentives and support have been and are essential, generating knowledge that has been and continues to be transferred to the industry. In turn, the industry also invests in innovation, allowing the creation of technological and innovative companies throughout the entire fish supply chain, which help improve the productivity and efficiency of the entire sector and adjacent industries. These synergies generate more highly qualified jobs, improving the living standards of communities and at the same time allowing for the sustainable development of the sector.
On the other hand, conflicts sometimes arise over the use of land and water in communities near aquaculture farms. Here, dialogue, literacy, and an inclusive and community-based approach can help overcome these issues, showing, for example, that the ecosystem services generated by aquaculture can promote increased fish stocks in the area, protect coastal zones from rising sea levels, or even improve the biodiversity of the surrounding environment, facilitating social acceptance and creating synergies with other activities, such as tourism, generating the capacity for communities to grow economically in the long term.
Environmental Pillar
Aquaculture is the fastest-growing activity in the animal production sector, and everything points to it contributing globally with more than 50% of the food produced for human consumption.
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