Conner Bailey - Aquacultural Development

Social Dimensions of an Emerging Industry

Edited by
Conner Bailey, Svein Jentoft, and Peter Sinclair

First published 1996 by Westview Press, Inc.

Published 2018 by Routledge
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ISBN 13: 978-0-367-01691-3 (hbk)

Increasing attention is being given to aquacultural development in both industrialized and non-industrialized nations of the world. Cultivating fish and other aquatic organisms, as distinct from harvesting wild stocks, often entails the introduction of a new form of production and a new, sometimes competing use for available natural resources. To date, most of the scientific work associated with aquacultural development has been carried out by biologists concerned with fish genetics, nutrition, disease, and the closely related issue of water quality. Only recently have social scientists begun to turn their attention to aquaculture as an important subject of enquiry.

The chapters in this volume are original contributions by sociologists and anthropologists focusing on the social dimensions of aquacultural development. Most of them began as papers presented at a symposium on the sociology of aquaculture held as part of the World Congress of Rural Sociology at Pennsylvania State University during August 1992. The editors reviewed the various papers and identified a set of common issues. Authors were requested to consider these commonalities as they prepared their revisions. The six issues we recognized are as follows:

The volume is organized into two sections. The first section contains eight chapters which focus on aquaculture development in North America and Europe. The second section contains six chapters on tropical aquaculture development drawing on case study material from Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America. A conscious effort was made to achieve broad geographical coverage, bringing together in a single volume a set of chapters that reflect conditions in different parts of the world. We recognize there are many countries with important aquaculture industries, notably China, that are not represented in this collection. We did manage to assemble chapters that range from tropical to arctic conditions and to include contributions on both freshwater and brackishwater aquaculture.

We believe that there are lessons to be learned from comparing aquaculture systems in various countries regardless of the social and environmental contrasts that exist among them. At the present stage of social research on aquaculture, our primary objective is to develop hypotheses and to identify concerns that need to be addressed in practical social planning as well as in further social research. We believe this volume makes a contribution to these goals.

The editors wish to acknowledge financial support from the College of Agriculture and the Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station, both at Auburn University, and the Norwegian Research Council, which made publication of this book possible. We also wish to recognize and thank Ms. Katie Smith for her editorial assistance. The editors contributed equally to planning and completing this volume.

Conner Bailey
Svein Jentoft
Peter Sinclair

Conner Bailey , Svein Jentoft and Peter Sinclair

Aquaculture represents the most important source of growth in fish supply for human consumption. The potential of aquaculture for commercial and nutritional purposes is now receiving greater attention because marine fish resources in most parts of the world are heavily exploited and seem to offer limited capacity for increased harvests (McGoodwin 1990).

For fishers and communities that depend on marine fisheries resources, the sea offers increasingly limited options for economic growth. Resource limitations also mean that marine stocks cannot be relied upon to meet the nutritional needs of an expanding human population for high-quality and affordable animal protein. The potential of aquaculture to meet nutritional needs and provide employment and income opportunities for producers has attracted significant attention from researchers and policy makers in both industrialized and non-industrialized nations.

Practiced for centuries in China and elsewhere in Asia, aquaculture is spreading rapidly throughout the world in both tropical and temperate zones. The recent expansion of aquacultural production has been made possible by scientific breakthroughs in fish nutrition, hatchery management, and improved understanding of fish genetics and aquatic ecology. Consumer demand in relatively wealthy industrialized nations for salmon and shrimp has provided a strong incentive for expanded production of afforded by low-income residents of developing nations has led to increased attention being given to easily raised species such as tilapia and carp. Bilateral and multilateral development agencies are increasing their support for aquacultural development both as a means of increasing foreign exchange earnings by developing countries (e.g., through shrimp exports) and to enhance the availability of affordable protein for domestic consumers. In many parts of the world, fish provides a high proportion of all animal protein and the only source affordable by the poor.