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This document is a summary of a special issue of the journal Aquaculture Economics & Management, which features seven articles presented at a conference on economics and marketing in the aquaculture industry. The articles cover a range of topics including production efficiency, profitability of new aquaculture species, risk management, marketing, consumer preferences, trade, policy, and the contribution of aquaculture to the regional economy. The papers provide insights into various aspects of aquaculture economics research, such as seafood trade, market integration, risk assessment, consumer preferences, and the development of new species and technologies. Overall, these papers contribute to the understanding and improvement of the aquaculture industry. [Extracted from the article]

Aquaculture has expanded rapidly over the past half century and has surpassed capture fisheries as a source of seafood globally. However, most of the aquaculture production growth has occurred in developing countries. Despite early leadership in the global aquaculture industry, most developed countries have played only a minor role in the Blue Revolution. This paper examines the potential for developed nations to increase aquaculture production using recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) based production. The United States is used as a case study to highlight potential benefits associated with RAS-based production for developed country producers. The paper examines potential marketing and production benefits associated with RAS-based production in developed countries and evaluates the potential for RAS to avoid some regulatory and social opposition obstacles that have hindered other forms of aquaculture in developed countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A rapidly growing literature shows that COVID-19 and the measures to contain the spread of the virus can have significant market impacts for seafood. These can be interruptions of production, or reductions in demand directly or indirectly due to supply chain challenges. In this paper we investigate the potential impacts of COVID-19 on seafood exports from Norway, the world's second largest seafood exporter, using highly detailed data from 2016 through May 2021. These data allow us to assess upstream impacts in the seafood supply chain close to the producer level in aggregate and by main sector, impacts on the largest products, and the extent to which export firm structure and export markets served have changed. We find very few impacts in aggregate as well as for individual products, suggesting that the markets and supply chains used by Norwegian seafood exports were sufficiently robust and flexible to accommodate the shocks created by COVID-19. Given Norway's size as a seafood exporter, the impact of COVID-19 has likely been moderate upstreams for a number of seafood sectors around the world, especially those in wealthy nations, with opportunities balancing out challenges, and that the supply chains have been highly resilient.

Blue foods are highly diverse and are supported by a wide range of ecosystems, production practices, and markets. This diversity influences resiliency of aquatic food systems, their capacity to contribute to global food security, and the spread of knowledge and adoption of innovations. Here, trends in diversity and determinants of diversity in capture fisheries and aquaculture production were examined at the global and country level. Results show that fisheries production is more diverse than aquaculture production, and that social and economic factors appear to be as important for species diversity as biophysical factors. The diversity of fisheries is diminished when governance is weak, and this poses challenges for managing fisheries for nutrition-sensitive food production. It also illustrates the greater potential of aquaculture to address challenges related to access given that less diversity in aquaculture is created by economies of scale making food more accessible among lower income groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seafood is the food group with the highest share traded, and the U.S. is the world's largest seafood importer, importing 79% of the seafood consumed. Hence, a study examining the impacts of the measures to contain COVID-19 on U.S. seafood imports will not only show how U.S. seafood availability has been affected, but will also give strong indications of how resiliently the global seafood markets have worked through the pandemic. We find that U.S. imports of seafood actually increased in 2020 and 2021, suggesting supply chains were able to adapt to potential disruptions. Moreover, for the 14 largest product forms imported to the U.S., there are no strong price movements. Given that there is a global market for most species groups, this adaption also suggests that the markets have worked quite well beyond the U.S. Hence, while there have undoubtedly been market shocks associated with the COVID-19 measures such as the reduction in demand from the restaurant sector and the increased sales in the retail sector, opportunities seem to balance out challenges, and the supply chains for seafood to the U.S. have been highly resilient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seasonality is a natural feature of wild caught fisheries that introduces variation in food supply, and which often is amplified by fisheries management systems. Seasonal timing of landings patterns and linkages to consumption patterns can have a potentially strong impact on income for coastal communities as well as import patterns. This study characterizes the relationship between seasonality in seafood production and consumption in the United States by analyzing monthly domestic fisheries landings and imports and retail sales of farmed and wild seafood from 2017 to 2019. Analyses were conducted for total seafood sales, by product form, by species group, and by region of the United States. The data reveal strong seasonal increases in consumption around December and March. Seasonal increases in consumption in Spring and Summer occurred in parallel with domestic fishing production. Domestic landings vary by region, but most regions have peak fishing seasons between May and October. Alaska has the largest commercial fishery in the United States and seasonal peaks in Alaska (July/August, February/March) strongly influence seasonality in national landings. Misalignment between domestic production and consumption in some seasons and species groups creates opportunities for imports to supplement demand and lost opportunities for domestic producers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While a large number of studies have investigated seafood consumption in various markets, surprisingly little is known about the types of seafood sold in retail outlets or their product forms in the USA. This is particularly true for fresh seafood, which is generally regarded as the most valuable product form of seafood. In this article, a unique dataset on retail in-store seafood sales that includes information about three main product forms (fresh, frozen, and shelf-stable products) was analyzed. Fresh seafood is important, as it makes up 43% of sales revenue. Moreover, some species are almost exclusively sold fresh, with trout and lobster as prime examples. Fresh also includes the greatest diversity of species and, as such, is the most likely product form for new producers to succeed. National sales are dominated by a few species, with salmon and shrimp accounting for a large portion of the fresh (27%) and frozen categories (43%), respectively, and tuna dominating the shelf-stable category (75%). There are also a large number of species with mostly small market shares. There are few differences in regional sales patterns for the main species, with notable exceptions such as whitefish in New England and crawfish in Louisiana and Texas. The degree of urbanization and income level appears as the important drivers for seafood sales. Supplemental data for this article is available online at https://doi.org/10.1080/23308249.2021.1946481 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concerns that additional supplies of U.S. farm-raised fish may compete with domestic wild fish has contributed to resistance and litigation that has slowed aquaculture development in the U.S. We employ a contingent choice experiment to large seafood wholesalers and suppliers in the U.S. to investigate market potential of new farmed finfish species from the Gulf of Mexico. We estimate probabilities that wholesale buyers prefer a new farmed product over existing market products using a conditional logit model. The results indicate it is more probable that Gulf farmed fish will substitute for imports than for domestic wild-caught fish given U.S. wholesale buyers have a preference for domestic fish to imported fish, but no significant preference for wild-caught fish to farmed fish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discussions about global aquaculture production and prospects for future growth largely focus on Asia, where most global production takes place. Countries in Asia accounted for about 89% of global production in 2016. Exclusive attention to Asian aquaculture, however, overlooks the fact that "the blue revolution" is occurring in most parts of the world. This paper examines patterns in the development of aquaculture production by analyzing growth rates across the globe at the regional, species and country levels. The results show that production in some non-Asian countries is growing more rapidly than the major Asian producers. Moreover, most developed countries have played a limited role in the blue revolution despite being leading producers as late as the 1970s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]