Aquaculture is a source of food, critical and essential to feed humanity and to ensure the world’s food security, and, also is a business that generates economic interest. This is clearly specified in the analysis document of the State of Fisheries and Aquaculture FAO 2016, which exposes that “aquaculture will become the main driver of change in the fisheries and aquaculture sector“. Aquaculture is the productive industrial activity that will play a crucial role in providing solutions to the millennium challenges. Globally this is the main idea that exists under the MedAID EU Horizon 2020 project.

Production and productivity of Mediterranean marine fish aquaculture, mainly seabass and seabream, are stagnating or growing slowly as a result of multiple and interrelated causes. To accomplish the objective of improving its competitiveness and sustainability, MedAID is structured in a first interdisciplinary Work-packages (WPs) to assess technical, environmental, market, socioeconomic and governance weaknesses.

WP1, “Holistic sustainability assessment of Mediterranean marine fish farming sector”, aims to carry out this mentioned assessment with a particular focus on the farm’s zootechnical performance, environmental and social sustainability, health, welfare and diseases, economic aspects and governance. The objective is to provide an overview of all the components of the value chain and assist the other WPs in their execution. To succeed in this challenge we started from the knowledge that we get from surveys addressed to the sector.

The aim of the present report “Deliverable 1.2. Assessment of Mediterranean Aquaculture Sustainability” is to present the results of such assessment throughout the compilation of different analysis (Zotechnical performance, Environmental and social sustainability, Prevalence of diseases, Economic performance of the industry, and Governance and social acceptability), which has been mainly done based on a survey addressed to Mediterranean aquaculture farms from the whole region.

The replies to surveys were compiled in a the Database of Mediterranean aquaculture farms, which have been used to analyse the information from a wider perspective, for both technical and economic indicators considered in the different thematic analysis here presented. MedAID has been able to obtain information from 27 partners and collaborating companies (50 production units) from 10 countries. For confidentially reasons their names are no mentioned in this report. Our most sincere gratitude is due to them, as without their collaboration, this study would had not been possible.

Although not all companies replied to all questions, and for some parts of the analysis the data were small, this study was able to identify significant associations between key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and predictor variables in the units that took part in the survey. The survey data analysis shows that farming practices differ among the farms, allowing for improvement of management and, also, there is not a common production method for the Mediterranean seabass and seabream production. Moreover, it should be considered both seabass and seabream routinely surveyed and analysed separately, and the possibility of analysing separately the farms according production systems.

Companies need to improve their productive efficiency through technical, operational and management innovations with a real transfer to the productive activity. The reduction of the average cost of production is a key aspect for the sustainability of the activity. While diversification is more efficient as the size of the company increases.

Finally, there is a broad consensus about the necessity of improving governance, reducing the complexity of the administration and the regulation of the sector. It is also argued the need to reduce the time required to obtain a license.