OUT AND ABOUT
An increase in global consumption of farmed
seafood is expected over the next 10 years Visionary people who are investing in the seafood industry, whether they are in aquaculture, fishing or any other areas within the associated value chain, now is the time to step forward and get ahead of the development of RAS farms (Aquaculture Recirculation Systems), in order to prevent staying out of the new and dynamic markets that will promote this technology.
By: Salvador Meza *
T
he production of farmed species has mainly driven the increase in the commercialization of fish and shellfish in recent years in different aquaculture settings, predominantly premium quality crustaceans, highvalue marine species, and lower-value white fish species produced in Asia and exported to countries in Europe and the American Continent.
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The annual growth of this market has been steady and around 4% on average between 2012 and 2017, reaching a value of nearly 150 billion dollars. This value increase is mainly a result of the commercialization of farmed salmon and shrimp, rather than a general rise of productions from fisheries, which are already being impacted by over-exploitation, lack of governance in an interna-
tional level and the effects of climate change. The highest value produced in the seafood market currently responds to farmed salmon exports from Norway to the European Union, followed by farmed shrimp and fish exports from China to the United States. During the period between 2013 and 2017, one of the seafood mar-
APRIL - MAY 2020
