FAQ

When done in a sustainable way, aquaculture can help to solve some of the most pressing issues we face today.

- Aquaculture delivers nutritious and diverse food to a growing world population.

- Aquaculture reduces the need to catch more wild fish to meet the increasing demand for fish and therefore contributes to preserving fish stocks.

- It can provide food that is fresh and local. Supplying food closer to the consumer allows reducing carbon emissions in transport.

- Aquaculture can produce food and feed with a lower climate and environmental impact than other types of farming (e.g. farming of bovine animals for milk or meat). By consuming more food from aquaculture, we can also reduce the pressure of farming on land.

- Aquaculture activities can be a source of income and development for remote coastal and rural communities where few alternatives are available. Certain types of aquacultures contribute to the preservation of ecosystems and biodiversity (e.g. bivalve farming, extensive aquaculture in ponds and wetlands, and the farming of algae and other invertebrates). These services include cleaning the water from excess nutrients and organic matter or the conservation and restoration of ecosystems and biodiversity.

- Before aquaculture farms can operate, future aquaculture producers must obtain an authorisation from the competent national authorities (sometimes regional authorities may be responsible for authorisations). In their assessment, the authorities check if the location proposed is suitable and carefully verify the potential impact of the farm on the environment.

- Aquaculture producers need authorisation before using seawater or freshwater for the farm. When they return it to the environment, the status of the water body must not deteriorate.

- In addition, aquaculture establishments must be registered or approved by sanitary authorities dealing with animal health, and both the farmer and these authorities have an obligation to carry out surveillance for possible diseases.

- Once all authorisations are obtained, aquaculture producers have to comply with several conditions to ensure that aquaculture activities are respectful of the environment, human and animal health and animal welfare.

- Authorized farms must continue to monitor their impact on the environment.

- To protect consumers’ health, aquaculture farmers must follow strict rules on animal health and food hygiene.

- With respect to animal health, farmers also have the obligation to keep several records, including those concerning how many animals enter and leave the farm and how many die. They must also record the measures they take to prevent and manage any risk of disease.

- Producers may only use authorized cleaning products and medicines and authorized and controlled feed. The use of veterinary medicines requires a prescription from a veterinarian, and only authorized veterinary medicines are permitted, respecting prescribed withdrawal periods and residue limits. Farmers must record all the veterinary medicines they use and keep a copy of the prescriptions. Preventive use of antibiotics is allowed only to an individual animal, in exceptional cases and under well-defined circumstances.

- In addition, farmers must ensure humane treatment of farmed animals throughout their production cycle and during slaughtering and transport.

To know if an aquaculture project can be carried out in an area, a viability study of the area (e.g. availability of quality water, non-interference with other uses, conditions for the establishment of aquaculture sites in the area) and of the possible species to be farmed must be carried out. There are many possible sites for aquaculture (e.g. on land, in coastal waters, offshore, estuarine, in ponds, next to rivers). To get a license, each site has different conditions and the studies to be carried out are different. The competent authorities sometimes identify previously studied areas where aquaculture activity is possible and prioritized, and this makes obtaining permits for a farm in the area quicker.

Although in theory all fish species could be used for aquaculture farming, only a few of them (around 10) are currently an important part of EU aquaculture production. In particular, those species whose biology is well-known and whose reproduction in captivity is possible are farmed. At the same time, there needs to be a market demand for these species and a market price that allows the production to be profitable.

There are very diverse production methods for EU aquaculture species, some of the main ones are the following (STECF Aquaculture economic data table, 2023):

Ponds: bodies of water, either natural or man-made, that hold water for activities like raising fish. They can be used for freshwater aquaculture, to produce species such as common carp, silver carp, and pikeperch, among others and for marine aquaculture to produce species such as seabass, seabream, sole, and mullets.

Tanks and raceways: artificial structures designed to hold and circulate water. Typically constructed above ground, they can be made from various materials (e.g. bricks, cement, concrete, fiberglass, plastics, etc.) in various shapes and sizes. They can be used for both freshwater and marine water. Raceways are used mostly for trout, but can also be used for sturgeon, while tanks are used for a wide range of species, notably turbot.

Recirculation Aquaculture Systems (RAS): is a technology which reuses the water in production, they can be operated using both freshwater and marine water. RAS are based on the use of mechanical and biological filters as well as ultraviolet radiation (UV) lamps and Ozone treatments to clean the water. RAS are used indoors in hatcheries across the EU for producing eggs, larvae and juveniles. RAS can be used to produce salmonids, great amberjacks, and meagre. Shrimp farming in RAS in EU Member State is an emerging sector.

Enclosures: are specific areas in the water, like shallow lagoons near the coast, that are fenced off with nets, wood or concrete attached to the seabed permitting free water exchange. In enclosures fish can swim freely inside but cannot escape. Eel and other types of fish like seabass, seabream and mullet can be also farmed in this way.

Net pens: are enclosed structures that can be open or covered. They can be made of nets or any other material that allows the natural exchange of water. These structures may be floating or suspended, supported by metal, plastic, or wooden frameworks. Net pens can be used to perform fish farming in lake; however, they are mostly used to raise fish in the sea. Net pens for marine aquaculture can be moored together and anchored to the sea floor. Many types of fish are farmed in net pens, including sea bass, sea bream, meagre, Atlantic salmon, trout, greater amberjack and bluefin tuna.

Off-bottom systems: refer to various structures used mainly for species that can be produced suspended (mussels, oyster and seaweed) aquaculture. These systems include trestles, wooden supports and bouchots, which are inserted into the seabed and mainly installed in the intertidal and shallow subtidal zone (foreshore and lagoons), long lines, and floating raft (bateas), which are equipped with floats and anchored on the seabed. These moored structures remain in a fixed position while being able to adjust the water movement in more or less sheltered coastal areas. Off-bottom systems can be also used for macroalgae production.

On-bottom systems refer instead to farming organisms directly seeded on muddy or sandy areas in the intertidal zone or in the shallow subtidal zone. They can be used for species such as clams, and sea cucumber.

Open or closed-system bioreactors for microalgae.

In addition, during the early growth stages, most fish and algae species need to be in land-based facilities such as hatcheries and nurseries. Seeds of molluscs are produced in hatcheries or collected from the wild.

Like any economic activity, aquaculture has an impact on the environment. This depends on the quality of management of the activity, the suitability of the location and the production system. When properly managed, aquaculture can also be a method of protein production with a lower carbon and environmental footprint than other types of farming (e.g. livestock farming). Furthermore, certain forms of aquaculture (e.g. bivalve farming, extensive and semi-intensive fish farming in ponds and wetlands, and the farming of algae and other invertebrates), when appropriately managed, can offer many ecosystem services. These services include the absorption of excess nutrients and organic matter from the environment or the conservation and restoration of ecosystems and biodiversity.

EU environmental legislation and implementing national legislation have set the regulatory framework for EU aquaculture that ensures the mitigation of the impact that aquaculture activities may have on the environment (be it in terms of carbon footprint, effluents, waste or other impacts on marine and freshwater ecosystems), and that aquaculture activities do not significantly harm ecosystems or biodiversity.

The environmental performance of the EU aquaculture sector can nevertheless be further improved by: (i) ensuring that environmental legislation is fully applied and its objectives are met; (ii) further mitigating the impact of aquaculture; and (iii) promoting aquaculture with lower environmental impact and aquaculture that provides ecosystem services.

The ‘Strategic guidelines for a more sustainable and competitive EU aquaculture for the period 2021 to 2030’ aim to improve the environmental performance of the aquaculture sector by further limiting the impact of aquaculture, as well as promoting the types of aquaculture that are most beneficial for the environment and the climate such as low trophic aquaculture and organic aquaculture.

Aquaculture requires good water quality to ensure optimal health and welfare of aquatic animals and the profitability of an aquatic farm. Therefore, the fight against water pollution by EU Member States, in line with the “zero pollution” ambition defined in the European Green Deal, is of particular importance to aquaculture.

Aquaculture producers need authorisation before using seawater or fresh water for the farm. When they return it to the environment, the status of the water body must not deteriorate. Discharges from EU aquaculture facilities must meet the rigorous EU water quality standards as well as stringent national, regional, and local regulations.

Certain forms of aquaculture such as mollusc farming and the farming of algae and other invertebrates, when appropriately managed, can improve the water quality due to the absorption of excess nutrients and organic matter from their aquatic environment.

Recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) are land-based aquaculture facilities – either open air or indoors – that minimize water consumption by filtering, adjusting, and reusing the water.

Compared to traditional ponds or open water aquaculture, the water recirculation process in RAS makes it possible to control the culture conditions and collect waste. In addition, land-based aquaculture avoids escapees and limits external transmission of diseases and parasites. RAS gives promise of more sustainable food production with lower consumption of fresh water, and shorter transport distances, as fish can be grown closer to the markets. By controlling the culture conditions, aquaculture production in a RAS facility can be established almost anywhere, regardless of local conditions. By moving the production on land, it can also mitigate the scarcity of available space and competition for access to sea areas.

On the other hand, a RAS facility tends to be energy-intensive and expensive. Investment costs are high, and recirculation technology consumes vast amounts of energy and requires to be controlled and managed by a skilled workforce. Furthermore, the technology remains to prove its viability on large-scale production, especially concerning saline water environments.

Feed for farmed fish must incorporate important levels (35-50%) of highly digestible proteins and high energy through high quality fats, to maintain their activity and growth. Feed also depends on the growth stage of the animal.

The raw materials available for the manufacturing of such aquafeed currently come from three main origins:

(i) Vegetable by-products from wheat, soya, and maize.

(ii) Fish meal and oil from fish and marine crustaceans although their share in feed is decreasing.

(iii) In some cases, also by-products from the processing sectors and the terrestrial animal production sector, which are highly nutritious.

Nowadays, more sustainable feeding systems are being promoted, limiting the dependence on fishmeal and fish oil from wild stocks for food production, for example, and encouraging the use of alternative protein ingredients, such as algae or insects, or waste from other industries. This is also reflected in the Strategic guidelines for a more sustainable and competitive EU aquaculture for the period 2021 to 2030. It is worth mentioning that the use of fishmeal and fish oil from wild stocks over time has decreased in several carnivorous species (e.g. salmon).

According to Regulation (EU) 2018/848 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 May 2018 on organic production and labelling of organic products (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32018R0848), organic production is an overall system of farm management and food production that combines best environmental and climate action practices, a high level of biodiversity, the preservation of natural resources and the application of high animal welfare standards and high production standards in line with the demand of a growing number of consumers for products produced using natural substances and processes. This Regulation together with certain relevant secondary acts, provides for detailed production rules for organic aquaculture which include environmental requirements, respect of a period for conversion into organic production, nutrition, animal welfare, health care and husbandry requirements with detailed maximum stocking densities for species and strict limitations on use of external input, among others on veterinarian treatments.

To be able to use the organic EU logo and to mention "organic" on the labels of their products, the organic operators must be certified by a control body approved by the competent authorities who will attest that their activity is carried out in compliance with the EU organic regulation.

More information on the EU organic certification system and its enforcement is available on the following Commission’s webpage:

Organic farming (https://agriculture.ec.europa.eu/farming/organic-farming_en). In addition a FAQ document on provisions concerning organic productions, including a chapter on organic aquaculture, is available here: https://agriculture.ec.europa.eu/document/download/e5b18da2-e7a7-4535-8….

Yes, it is feasible, but technical, engineering and cost challenges remain. The future development of offshore or exposed ocean aquaculture will depend on the technology that is implemented to overcome the extreme conditions of the oceanic climate, the logistical problems to bring feed and other inputs to the farm, the development of offshore working platforms and the remote control of the platforms based in the internet of things (IoT) to communicate and to manage the platforms with optimization systems based on artificial intelligence.

Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture (IMTA) is a type of aquaculture where several aquatic species from different trophic levels (e.g. fish, seaweed, shellfish or other invertebrates) are farmed in close proximity in the same production system to improve efficiency, reduce waste and provide ecosystem services, such as bioremediation.

The ‘Strategic guidelines for a more sustainable and competitive EU aquaculture for the period 2021 to 2030’ promote IMTA, among other types of aquacultures that are most beneficial for the environment and the climate.

IMTA can cover many different types of aquaculture systems, such as land-based aquaculture systems (e.g. ponds) and net pens systems (e.g. combination of fish farming with off-bottom and on-bottom systems for bivalve molluscs and seaweed production). However, the aim is always to increase environmental sustainability, within holistic and circular economy approaches.

IMTA systems enhance aquaculture sustainability by mimicking natural nutrient cycles. In these systems, the organic matter that is not used by one species, such as fish, becomes a resource for others, like seaweed and molluscs, which use the nutrients to grow. The effectiveness of the system depends on environmental factors, such as nutrient levels in the area, food availability and hydrodynamics.

Several challenges remain with IMTA. For example, according to EU legislation, aquaculture animals cannot be fed on waste, which means that the legal framework in force invalidates models where fish are combined with certain filter feeders and detritivores species (low trophic species like bivalve molluscs and sea cucumbers) which recycle the nutrients from fish uneaten feed and feces.

To assess and help address challenges to IMTA development, the EU has funded several projects on IMTA such as Astral (https://www.astral-project.eu/ ) and AquaVitae (https://aquavitaeproject.eu/).

Aquaculture production in the 27 EU Member States was almost 1.2 million tons and accounted for €4.8 billion in 2022.

In 2022, the main aquaculture species produced were sea mussels (without the species being fully specified, but mostly consisting of Mediterranean mussels) with 195 thousand tons (17% of total EU production), rainbow trout (169 thousand tons, 15%), blue mussels (135 thousand tons, 12%), Gilthead seabream (106 thousand tons, 10%), Pacific cupped oyster (100 thousand tons, 9%), European seabass (90 thousand tons, 8%), Mediterranean mussel (79 thousand tons, 7%), Common carp (63 thousand tons, 6%) and Atlantic bluefin tuna (32 thousand tons, 3%). These nine species account for 87% of the total EU aquaculture production in weight (STECF_24-14_EU).

EU aquaculture products are produced according to high quality and sustainability standards because there is a large body of EU legislation in place covering different issues which aquaculture producers have to comply with (e.g. legislation on animal health, animal welfare, food safety, feed safety, veterinary treatments, water quality, legislation on the introduction of non-native or locally absent species, etc). Moreover, EU aquaculture production can provide food that is closer to the final consumer. Therefore, if communicated properly, sustainability and quality can provide a competitive edge to EU aquaculture products compared to imported products not complying with the same standards.

Research is ongoing on this subject. For example, the EU-funded project “Diversify” has identified the following species as the most important for productive diversification of European aquaculture: Meagre (Argyrosomus regius), Greater amberjack (Seriola dumerilii), pikeperch (Sander lucioperca), Atlantic halibut (Hippoglossus hippoglossus), Wreckfish (Polyprion americanus), Grey mullet (Mugil cephalus). Other EU-funded projects have also looked into the potential for further diversification of species, including low-trophic species (see AquaVitae (https://aquavitaeproject.eu/). Diversification must be undertaken in acknowledgement of market demand and international trade in aquatic food products.

Algae offer a large potential, but production in Europe is currently still low. The Commission adopted in 2022 the Communication ‘Towards a strong and sustainable EU algae sector', the so-called EU Algae Initiative (https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_22_6899) which aims at unlocking the potential of algae in the European Union. The Communication proposes 23 actions to create opportunities for the industry to help it grow into a robust, sustainable and regenerative sector capable of meeting the growing EU demand. The European algae stakeholder platform, EU4Algae (https://maritime-forum.ec.europa.eu/en/frontpage/1727) aims to accelerate the development of a European algae industry and promote algae for nutrition and other uses among consumers and businesses in the EU.

The average EU citizen was estimated to have consumed 23,51 kg LWE (Live Weight Equivalent) of fishery and aquaculture products in 2022. Most EU consumption of fishery and aquaculture products consists of wild products and, more specifically, of imported fishery products. Indeed, wild products accounted for 16,70 kg LWE of total per capita apparent consumption and farmed products accounted for the remaining 6,82 kg LWE (EUMOFA, 2024). According to these data the percentage of aquaculture products consumed by EU citizens is 29%.

The total organic aquaculture production in the EU was close to 99.950 tons in 2021, accounting for 9% of the total EU aquaculture production. More than two thirds of organic production take place in three countries: Ireland which produced almost 33.000 tons in 2021, mainly salmon and mussel; Italy 23.700 tons, mainly mussel and finfish; and the Netherlands 15.300 tons, mainly mussel. Thanks to the growth in organic mussel production, the overall EU organic production of fish and seafood increased notably from 2015, when it was just over 46.000 tons. The increase from 2020 to 2021 was mainly driven by the increased production of organic mussels in Italy and the Netherlands (EUMOFA, 2024).

The five largest producers in 2022 by volume were Spain, France, Greece, Italy and Poland, while Greece, Spain, France, Italy and Malta recorded the highest production in value terms. Together, these seven countries accounted for about 70% of the EU’s total aquaculture production, both by volume and value, with Spain, France and Greece alone contributing to more than half (EUMOFA, 2024).

The global value of aquaculture production reached €296 billion (312 billion USD) in 2022 (FAO, 2024). The sector has increased production more than 4 times since 1990. However, this growth has primarily been driven by Asian countries producing almost 90% of the world's aquaculture products. China is the most important producer of aquaculture products in the world, producing 57% of the global aquaculture products. European Union aquaculture production represented only 0.86% of the world aquaculture production in terms of weight and 1.6% in value (STECF-24-14_EU).

Since 2011, the overall EU production seems to be rather stable, between 1.1 and 1.2 million tons. A noticeable decrease is observed between 2010 and 2013, which was mainly due to a decrease in the production of mussels affected by environmental conditions, such as “red ties” in Spain, and shellfish diseases. The recovery from 2013 to 2016 can again be explained by increasing productions of shellfish, catching up from earlier year’s production. Since then, production has remained stagnant, and even after growing slightly during 2021 and 2022, the estimate for 2023 reflects a new decline (STECF-24-14_EU).

Precision aquaculture is a technologically sophisticated approach in the aquaculture sector aimed at incorporating advanced tools and methodologies to boost the autonomy of monitoring both biotic and abiotic variables in the facilities, fostering a more efficient farm management. This approach can improve the health and welfare of farmed animals, mitigate environmental impacts and enhance the economic viability of aquaculture facilities. Precision aquaculture aims to empower producers to monitor more efficiently and document biological processes inherent to their facilities and is characterized by the integration of cutting-edge sensor technologies, statistical analysis methodologies, and sophisticated artificial intelligence (AI) technologies.