1.0 Aquaculture Industry Overview
Authors: David E. Starling, DVM
If you have an interest in fish and farming, you may find yourself interested in aquaculture. Aquaculture is viewed as the aquatic side of livestock and crop rearing and is defined as the “culture of organisms in water.” Aquaculture has recently overtaken fisheries in total tons of seafood production in the world, as the ecosystems supporting the wild catch are not sufficient to support the taking in most areas. Hence, fisheries are plateauing or declining. This chapter will focus on the basics of aquaculture from its history to sustainability, common fish raises, and even the struggles and future prospects for the practice.
Aquaculture can focus on fish, shellfish, and even aquatic plants and follows many of the same practices as its terrestrial counterpart, including feeding, housing, protecting, reproducing, and transporting fish. Of course, the transportation practices may differ from trucks to boats in some cases, but the similarities are very noticeable.
Other terms you may hear alongside aquaculture are fisheries and seafood. Fisheries, although very similar to aquaculture, focus on captured wild aquatic fish and shellfish species, while aquaculture focuses on rearing aquatic organisms under controlled environments. Both terms are closely related and important when understanding how aquatic life is caught and sold. Seafood can then be used to combine fisheries and aquaculture products used as food by humans prominently, including fish and shellfish as well as algal species.
The following YouTube video produced by the Global Seafood Alliance is a simple, informative description to answer the question of where seafood comes from:
The rearing to harvest of aquatic organisms including animals & plants in various categories of water ranging from freshwater to brackish to marine.
