"Research and technical developments in aquaculture today represent food for the  future.  Bearing in mind the acknowledged potential of aquaculture as a world food resource, it is essential that the industry's researchers, practitioners and regulators adopt appropriate perspectives to the  sustainable harvesting of our marine and freshwater resources."  Jens Sorensen - Biomar Group

Aquaculture is a sustainable activity when 4  basic criteria are met

1. mastery of the life-cycle
Knowing how to  breed the adult fish and be able to rear an egg to the adult size

2. control of the growing process
Knowledge of  the nutritional and behavioural requirements of the fish in order to assure efficient husbandry

3. respecting the environment
Fish farming can only be done successfully in a clean environment - if this criterion is not respected, fish farming cannot be sustainable

4. marketing the final product
If the farmer cannot sell his product for a profit, it is clear that his business is not sustainable

A Historical Perspective

To fully understand modern aquaculture, it is important to understand the history of food cultivation.  The merits of today's fish farming techniques should also be able to stand evaluation  against the full range of traditional and modern agricultural methods that are used in terrestrial food production.

The culture of plants and animals has a long tradition in human history

The overall aim of such activities can be summarised as the progressively more efficient use of all resources involved in the provision of  food for the human population.  Only a minor fraction of the human food supply now comes from hunting, the traditional source of animal food.  Interestingly, the majority of that comes from the world's fisheries of wild stocks. 

It is a simple conclusion that the provision of fish as a human food resource lags behind the provision of all other food  resources in its basic methodology.

The main historical incentives for cultured food production are:

• to increase the amount of available food
• to reduce the energy costs involved in searching for, gathering and transporting food
• to improve the stability  and predictability of food production
• to improve the reliability of food supply, by cultivating and storing excess production
• to improve and stabilise food quality

Sustainability, efficiency and society

All food culture systems have their initial development costs; namely an investment in time, effort and resources.  Knowledge and  organisation are both important for the development of efficient techniques.  In general, one can say that the more intensive the culture system, the higher the initial costs.

Over history, the culture of food organisms has become increasingly efficient.  The earth has never fed a larger population than today.  Indeed agriculture has become so efficient in industrialised countries that only a small proportion of the workforce is now involved in farming activities.

As shown by the culture of carp in China, some traditional aquaculture methods have proven to be sustainable and stable over hundreds or even thousands of years.  

Although some modern methods have yet to become as sustainable as this example, positive progress is very rapid in this area.  By way of example, between 1987 and 1996, the use of antibiotics in Norwegian salmon culture decreased from  1.065 grams  to 0.003 grams per kilogram of of fish produced.

That is a drop to 0.3% of its former level that has been made within one decade.  This is a remarkable achievement by any standards and one which has made Norwegian salmon farming the cultured  meat (flesh) production process with the lowest use of antibiotics per unit production. Much the same is true in other European salmon farming regions.  It may surprise many consumers to know that the use of antibiotics in salmon  farming is now far lower than in traditional agricultural production.