What does aquaculture add to the 21st century world?

Aquaculture is the farming of aquatic organisms, including fish, crustaceans, molluscs and aquatic plants.  Various infrastructure types can be used including cages, ponds and tanks, with each type having distinct circumstances under which it would be the optimal choice.  Aquaculture can take the form of subsistence farming, but more commonly refers to commercial production to make a profit. What does this industry contribute to the world in 2025?
 
The industry serves several purposes in our modern society, including the following:
 
Aquaculture can be a solid financial investment, offering attractive returns if implemented correctly.  Species and infrastructure choices are key to financial viability, and a focus on high value species tends to offer the best fiscal prospects.  The world is a global market and often the most viable option is to produce a scarce product for a distant market.  That said though, for lower value species the local market can also be rewarding as your ability to deliver in the vicinity provides a buffer against the logistic costs associated with imports from, and exports to, farther away.  Be sure that the choice of infrastructure matches the climate to provide optimal growth and production year round so that you can supply the market constantly, thereby securing market share and the best price.  Seasonal suppliers are usually price takers and such infrequent sales also plays havoc with cash flow.
 
Fish and seafood are known to be highly nutritious as they are rich in omega-3 fatty acids, proteins, minerals and vitamins, and should form part of a balanced diet.  Furthermore, by farming fish we can control the fishes’ diet and avoid their intake of harmful items such as mercury and microplastics, enhancing the healthiness of farmed over wild caught fish.
 
Fish are the most efficient converters of feed to growth of any farmed animal offering a Feed Conversion Ratio (FCR) of around 1:1 on high quality feeds.  This is due to them not maintaining their body temperature above the ambient, saving the energy that other farm animals expend on keeping warm.  As such, fish farming produces more animal protein per ton of feed than any other cultivated creature.  Furthermore, oysters and mussels are filter feeders and do not require feeding, and seaweeds take up the nutrients they require from the water, making both groups super-efficient to produce in captivity.
 
The perception persists that farmed fish are full of antibiotics, hormones and harmful chemicals associated with pest-control on the farm.  Whilst this is believed to be true of fish from parts of SE Asia, this need certainly not be valid in the case of fish produced in southern Africa.  Appropriate quarantine on arrival of the initial stock followed by farming the fish under near optimal conditions means that most disease organisms can be excluded and the healthy fish can ward off attacks by any agents that do manage to enter the farming environment.  As such, chemical controls are seldom required, and hormones and antibiotics virtually never used.
 
As the world’s population continues to increase, more food needs to be sustainably produced from a limited area of arable land.  Many wild fish fisheries have collapsed placing pressure on the aquaculture industry to increase its output rapidly as it contributes to meet growing global need for food security with fish providing an important source of animal protein and nutrients to a large portion of the world’s population.  An important consideration relating to aquaculture is that the resource is created, nurtured and ultimately sold, as opposed to wild stocks that are simply harvested to be sold.  As such the farmer protects the stock from predators, feeds it well and reproduces the stock to ensure continuous supply.  As aquaculture output grows this in turn reduces pressure on the remaining wild stocks, thereby reducing the burden on the natural environment in situations where governments allow this to happen, by providing an alternative to wild caught fish from stocks that may not be sustainably managed. This ecological benefit serves both human and natural needs.
 
Through ongoing research, innovation and technology across multiple fields relating to aquaculture we have developed genetic, infrastructure, feed, stock administration and health management tools that enable farmers to produce more from fewer resources.  Also, we have reduced discharges into the environment, protecting the downstream environment from harm associated with on-farm practises.  Aquaponics is the integration of recirculating fish farming with the cultivation of plants crops.  Fish wastes provide virtually all of the nutrients required by the plants which in turn strip these nutrients from the water, thereby cleaning it to return to the fish.  A correctly balanced aquaponics system can recycle water in this way for years without needing to change the water, without any downstream impact as the system has no water discharge.  This demonstrates how well aquaculture is suited to addressing climate change through being an industry that can utilise resources of space, water and electricity very efficiently whilst producing healthy products and employing people in the process.
 
Another huge benefit of aquaculture is that it is skills intensive, thus creating specialised employment opportunities in a world where job creation is an imperative.  If the business is structured and funded appropriately, employees can also be shareholders, thereby benefiting further from dividends when the business becomes profitable, thereby providing wealth creation as well as job security.
 
When executed correctly, aquaculture has the potential to create employment, provide healthy food and foster economic benefit to communities, and does so whilst reducing pressure on the natural environment.  The aquaculture industry has grown rapidly over the past 4 decades and is set to continue doing so as it provides these vital services to our increasing global population.