Future Prospects of Marine Aquaculture

As a part of the OECD project The Future of the Ocean Economy (OECD 2016), a report on the Future Prospects of Marine Aquaculture industry towards 2030 was developed to assess risks and uncertainties around future developments. This paper is based on the report and the respective authors were lead experts for the workshop and authors of the OECD report. Global demand for seafood is expected to continue to rise over the next decades, because of increased world population, growing purchasing power and more people entering the middle class. It is expected that most of the future growth in seafood production will be through aquaculture and that expansion in aquaculture production capacity will occur in the ocean, with some of it moving increasingly offshore to escape the constraints in coastal waters. The list of technical and non-technical challenges for further growth of the marine aquaculture sectors is diverse, including development of technology and operational practices for open ocean farming technology of both fed and non-fed species, technology for less labour-intensive farming operations for industrialisation of non-fed aquaculture, new omega 3 rich feed resources for fin fish farming, and development of international legal framework for ocean and marine activities.