TECHNICAL AND ECONOMICAL FEASIBILITY OF SEABASS FRY PRODUCTION ACCORDING TO ORGANIC TECHNIQUES

Over the past few years, consumers have been increasing their awareness about environmental, health and safety concerns and they have been gradually changing their habits in favor of organic food. In aquaculture sector, the most recent legislative framework regarding the organic production in Europe is the Commission Regulation (EC) 710/2009, where chapter for aquaculture animals include requirement for animal welfare conditions in husbandry and maximum stocking densities. In Italy, only ten farms are involved in the supply of certified organic fish and only some pilot projects were carried out for organic farming of different species. Therefore, the purpose of this research was to define or verify the principal standards for organic seabass farming, evaluating technical feasibility and production costs, comparing them with conventional production. This study contains the first considerations about organic production and its relative costs for sea bass fry, one of the most reared species of the country. Conversion to organic production naturally involves additional costs concerning the conversion process itself, the production of a new type of product and the lower output. In fact, results have shown that certification and feed costs represented the most significant difference between conventional and organic production. Finally, the current market situation is characterized by a low demand, an inadequately product differentiation from conventional (domestic or foreign) ones, a legislation still in progress, an unstructured and lower offer of organic products which does not allow to consider organic aquaculture as an activity that today can assure adequate profitability for the most part of Italian aquaculture firms.