Globally, aquaculture production has been the food production technology with the highest growth rate in recent decades. While this is a strong indication of economic sustainability, there are significant differences between species and locations. Moreover, the rapid growth has led to the environmental sustainability of the industry being questioned, although the picture is getting nuanced as some sectors have better performance than others. The rapid production growth also leads to societal change, and this is creating a further sustainability challenge for the industry.
A challenge when one is interested in comparing different production systems is that comparable data is generally not available beyond production numbers. In this presentation, we investigate which factors are most likely to contribute to improving aquaculture’s environmental, economic and social sustainability. The data were collected using the Aquaculture Performance Indicators (API) for 69 aquaculture production systems that represent over 40% of global aquaculture production quantity and 36% of global production value. The analysis is conducted using regression trees and random forest estimation.
The preliminary results indicate that for all three pillars, general societal factors related to governance and economic conditions are more important than aquaculture specific measures. For both economic and societal sustainability, the ability for collective actions and viable industry organizations are also important.