Status and future perspectives of marine aquaculture

The predicted growth in aquaculture production to 80-90 million tonnes year^-1 in 2050 is constrained by important drivers, which can be divided into three main clusters: (1) a resource cluster (availability of resources such as space, feed and energy); (2) an attitudinal cluster (public and consumer attitudes, legislation etc.) and (3) an innovation cluster (new technology and market developments). This chapter discuss solutions to these bottlenecks based on the current status of aquaculture and possible developments in e.g. feed technology, off-shore and land-based farms. A model for the possible future interactions between the three clusters is discussed. From this analysis, it is concluded that a major challenge for aquaculture is to achieve better control of the feed availability in the future. Only if this can be realised, aquaculture may grow in a similar way as agriculture. Space for the industry and public environmental concern are other main driving factors of the development, but these constraints can most likely be mitigated through technological improvements.