LA ACUICULTURA MUNDIAL EN AÑOS RECIENTES: REALIDADES Y PERSPECTIVA MUNDIAL Y LATINOAMERICANA/DEL CARIBE

Figura 4  ALC y Mundo: Estructura  del volumen y valor de las cosechas acuícolas, por división de especies CEIUAPA, 1990/92-2020/22 . % de los totales de cada trienio

Fuente: Cifras de Tablas 5 y 15

It is also important to highlight that LAC stands out for its surplus trade balance in volume and value of fishery and aquaculture exports. The region achieved an average annual surplus of 4.45 million tons and $21.555 billion in 2020/2022, resulting from exports of $27.607 billion and imports of $6.052 billion annually . Globally, fishery product exports per year reached $203.118 billion during the same triennium, meaning that LAC accounted for 13.6% of the total in 2020/2022.

The United States is the world's largest importer of fishery products, with an annual average of $32.910 billion in 2020/2022. China follows with $21.471 billion, and Japan ranks third with $16.806 billion annually in that period. Together, these three countries represent 35.3% of global fishery imports during this period and rely heavily on foreign suppliers, presenting an attractive opportunity for Latin American exporters and aquaculture producers. Many European Union countries also represent important fishery markets for LAC, with high annual import values. Nations such as Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Sweden, and the Netherlands each import over $5.900 billion annually in 2020/2022, while the next 11 countries conduct imports ranging from $2 to $5.4 billion annually during this period. This expands the sales opportunities for LAC aquaculture producers. However, LAC is not the only significant fishery exporter, as Europe, despite being a major importer, is the leading continent for fishery exports, with $74.759 billion annually in 2020/2022, slightly surpassing Asia, which exported $73.273 billion annually during the same period. This underscores the high levels of competition in importing markets and the need for LAC to maintain highly competitive and well-organized fishery and aquaculture industries.

It is also worth mentioning that, similar to fishery production trends, global exports have experienced fluctuations in their growth rates. While exports grew at an annual average rate of 2.8% between 1990/1992 and 2000/2002, they increased to 3.9% annually between 2000/2002 and 2010/2012 but slowed down to a rate of 1.9% annually between 2010/2012 and 2020/2022. Moreover, as previously mentioned, it is expected that the pace of these growth rates will slow further, at least until 2033. This situation will require greater efficiency from producers and the development of new market options for LAC aquaculture producers and globally.

THE NEAR FUTURE

The year 2022 shows progress in global and Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) aquaculture harvest volumes, with increases of 3.6% and 12.3%, respectively, compared to 2021. However, in a broader perspective, these growth rates do not offset the fact that over the past three decades, the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of global aquaculture has continued to decline, from 9.4% to 4.2% per year between the decade beginning in 1990/1992 and the one ending in 2020/2022. A similar trend is observed in LAC, where the slowdown in farmed volumes is more pronounced, with CAGRs dropping from 15.1% to 6.4% per year over the same period. Nonetheless, over the past 30 years ending in 2020/2022, global and LAC harvest volumes have increased at CAGRs of 6.4% and 9.7%, respectively.

Now, considering the growth rates of aquaculture production in more recent dates on a triennial basis, aquaculture in LAC shows increasing dynamism, with a CAGR rising from 5.2% in 2011/13-2014/16 to 7.2% in 2017/19-2020/22, while world rates decline from 4.9% to 3.4% over the same periods. Therefore, although the CAGRs of harvest volumes have decreased globally and in LAC over the past 30 years (more sharply in LAC), recent trends provide more optimistic prospects for the region, which may be on the verge of breaking the decadal slowdown described earlier.

The figures also suggest that any significant growth in landings will have to be mainly associated with increases in aquaculture production, as extractive fisheries continue to show signs of weakness and exhaustion, which are also partially reversed in the last three trienniums (from -7.6% per year to +1.6% per year in the same periods mentioned above).  

Certainly, technological and climate changes should significantly alter many of the numerical relationships in regional and global crops in the coming decades. In relation to this first aspect, emerging production in land-based recirculating systems (RAS) and offshore farming (production in exposed marine areas) should make it possible to increase crops in much larger areas than those currently used in countries with a developed aquaculture industry, as well as to generate massive production closer to or within the territory of current net-importers of fishery products, particularly in countries such as the USA, Japan, some areas of Europe, Brazil, Mexico and Asia. These facts should lead to fewer conflicts with other users of the coastal zone and inland waters, with better chances to obtain more easily farming licenses, and presumably, at much lower costs in the medium and long term .[2].

At present, the extent of climate and technological change effects cannot be predicted with numerical precision in these paragraphs, but everything seems to indicate that, especially as from the 2030s, there will be structural alterations of magnitude in world aquaculture, which will result in the coastal zone gradually and mainly being left in the hands of the small artisanal/family farmer, which will supply specially cities and nearby rural populations, while medium and large industrial facilities gradually migrate to more unprotected marine areas ('offshore') or to land (RAS systems), specializing their sales in large urban domestic centers and/or exports.

Aquaculture production in LAC continental waters and in other parts of the world must also undergo modifications in their productive structure, seeking greater efficiency and competitiveness through greater and better associativity and social/productive organization of small producers; through the introduction of appropriate management systems, innovative technologies and greater intervention in marketing, supported by effective official technical assistance programs. In turn, increasing activities by medium and large-sized companies, which should also accelerate their innovation processes in inland waters are also to be expected.

Beyond all of the above, LAC and many other regions of the world also continue to work vigorously on diversification activities through the introduction of new species that are still little or not at all exploited, and the enabling of new areas for aquaculture, although, frankly, in a relatively discontinuous and not very organic way, at least in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Of particular interest is the work with multiple native species – most likely too many – but still with a limited level of success in technological and market developments, as a result of often poorly oriented and/or without continuity over time programs and projects, and low investment in R&D, at least in LAC. It is also evident that an important part of the most promising technological innovation likely to be massively used, still comes from high developed countries, most of which- curiously enough - do not show a special vocation for aquaculture growth in their own territories so far, despite usually standing out as importers of fishery products. Conversely, many countries in LAC and other regions of the world have ample space, infrastructure and environmental conditions, and are looking to develop a competitive aquaculture to improve food security and increase exports but face severe limitations precisely because of technical gaps in the design of new production systems needed for native species, inappropriate R&D schemes, lack of trained human capital and insufficient investment in marketing activities. Obviously, then, there are interesting prospects to develop strategic alliances, mainly north-south, which could translate into great achievements for their participants.

The limited domestic markets and export opportunities have led countries such as Chile, Ecuador, Honduras and others to orientate their aquaculture activities towards foreign trade, an issue that has determined that sectoral firms in those places – especially in the case of Chile – have been designed using medium and large production sizes and state-of-the-art technologies, to take advantage of economies of scale and obtain appropriate levels of competitiveness. They have succeeded in these endeavors, while other nations with incipient aquaculture production face greater challenges in joining fairly globalized markets , a situation that inhibits the development of some crops.

It is also notorious that in several countries, but especially in LAC, governments show a mainly 'comptroller/regulatory' vocation towards aquaculture, with personnel who are not necessarily well qualified – generally with more experience in fishing – and neglect their important leadership role to promote further sectoral development. Thus, regulatory environments do not necessarily facilitate investment and a greater participation of the business sector, nor help adequately addressing the needs of small producers, who in many cases continue to be marginalized.

It is also clear that climate change is strongly affecting many regions of the world in their capacities to project their aquaculture productions into the future. The increasing variability in the availability of fresh water, the need to have adequate installations and equipment to overcome more frequent and significant swells, storms and torrential rains or droughts; changes in the temperature and acidity of marine waters and many other circumstances are limiting or at least complicating the desire to invest in global aquaculture.

Governance is also usually inadequate and bureaucratic, with a tendency to 'overregulate', while frequently needing long periods of time to issue farming licenses and other authorizations, through expensive and time-consuming processes and questionable duration periods, sometimes too short to satisfy investors. Also, possible levels of saturation of some markets are being experienced and a growing and aggressive competition from poultry and pig producers is becoming more evident by the day. These facts added to increasing transportation and other costs explain a good part of the why harvest growth rates have systematically slowed down in LAC and around the world in recent decades.

The clear trend towards moderation/decline in the rates of growth in world harvests should be of concern, as it may presage more challenging scenarios in the future, when possible slacks exploited up to now decrease or disappear and the industry as a whole faces a slower growth scenario and/or even a certain immobility that may lead to rethinking the role of world aquaculture in seafood supplies beyond the 2030s.

For the time being, however, it is reassuring that the total apparent consumption of fishery products to feed the population has increased between about 127.6 million tons in 2010 to about 162 million tons in 2021 , or by 27% since the first date. These figures contrast with a population growth of only 13.2% until 2021, a fact which allowed per capita fish consumption between those years to increase from 18.5 kilos to 20.5 kilos per person. However, between 2010 and 2019 human consumption in Europe decreased from 22.3 kilos per person to 21.7 kilos and in Africa it remained static at 10.1 kilos, so that the real engine of world fish consumption continues to be Asia, where consumption per person increases from 20.8 kilos to 24.5 kilos between 2010 and 2019, with total values growing from 87.3 to 113.2 million tons between those years, an increase of 29.7%, compared to a surge in population of only 9.7%.

It can be added that the latest OECD-FAO publication Agricultural Outlook 2024-2033, of July 2024, indicates that by 2033 a per capita consumption of fishery products of 21.4 kilos could be reached. This figure surpasses the estimated 20.8 kilos in 2021/2023. Thus, the expected consumption per person in the coming years will grow on all continents except Europe and Africa. Asia will further rise the high per capita consumption observed today and will be responsible for 77% of the increase in total consumption between 2021/2023 and 2033. Likewise, it is projected that approximately 90% of the world's fish landings will be destined for human consumption, a figure very similar to the current one.

However, current fishery exporting countries must prepare for a change of scenarios in international trade until 2033, since according to the OECD-FAO Outlook 2024-2033, it is expected that 95% of the increase in consumption until that year will be associated with low and middle-income countries, which with this new impetus will be responsible for 82% of the world’s use of fish products for human consumption by then. Thus, in these countries, consumption will increase by 15% between 2021/2023 and 2033, while in developed countries, by only 3.3%.

It is also anticipated that by 2033 global fish production will reach about 206 million tons, after an estimated landing of about 186 million tons in 2023, with a growth of only 21 million tons compared to the 2021/2023 period, generating an increase of 12%, versus 21% in the immediately preceding decade. In any case, this increase will be mainly related to the development of aquaculture, which should contribute 112 million tons in 2033, or 55% of the global fish landing by then (50.9% in 2022). It is also anticipated that around 80% of the increase in global aquaculture production by 2033 will be associated with additional harvests in China, India, and Indonesia. China would stabilize its contribution to global aquaculture, accounting for approximately 55% of the totals.

However, the evident slowdown—and even stagnation in some regions of the world—of the apparent per capita consumption (and production) of fish and aquaculture products is indicative—as confirmed by SOFIA 2024 and the cited OECD/FAO 2024-2033 publication—that the sector’s productive dynamics will continue to decline in the period ending in 2033, and that the same will happen with international trade until those dates, which in any case will cover more than 30% of landing weights. Thus, if this trend continues as a result of the conjunction of limiting variables of different nature (environmental, governance, technological, market, and more), for the first time in many decades, it could be imagined that in years beyond the 2030s, the advance of aquaculture could be restricted, with possible significant effects on less efficient producers.

Certainly, the speculative limitations just described do not necessarily define the future scenario of global and regional aquaculture, as there are important signs of vitality and sectoral talents that strive and will strive to overcome the above mentioned inconveniences and make use of the undeniable conditions and capacities to produce valuable food for a population that will continue to grow in the coming decades. Therefore, the expected situations, more challenging than in previous decades, call for more planned work and a long-term vision, to design strategies appropriate to the new conditions.

At present, a good number of sectoral actors in many places think more in the short term and somehow ignore the need for extensive preparatory periods to innovate, diversify, and become more competitive, a fact which leads to the misuse of relatively scarce human and financial resources, and challenges the opportunity to generate a better and more energetic aquaculture development process. Furthermore, in many LAC countries and other corners of the world, significant state investments to support small producers are massively implemented without an adequate understanding of their true scope and effects, and usually with little success. These initiatives are rarely evaluated at their conclusion, so not much is known about their social profitability and effectiveness, a fact which conspires against the good use of available financing. The same happens with funds allocated to R&D in many countries, particularly in LAC, as they do not seem to be applied where they are most needed, consistently over time and for the required periods of time.

Regardless of the 2022 results, the persistent declines in global aquaculture growth rates call for caution in projecting farmed volumes to be expected in coming years in many regions of the world, although not necessarily in LAC, where a possible realignment of sectoral governance, better leadership, and the generation of new medium- and long-term objectives and goals in countries such as Brazil, Peru, Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, in addition to Chile and Ecuador, can greatly energize the sector with additional productions.

Certainly, many countries in other latitudes are currently developing significant land-based, recirculation farming projects to alleviate their deficits in domestic fish production, as is the case of the USA. These projects, many of which will come into operation in the second half of this decade or thereafter, along with many others in Norway, Arab countries, and other nations, will not only reconfigure the global aquaculture production matrix but will challenge traditional exporters such as Ecuador and Chile, which, exposed to new productions of salmon, trout, or shrimp in consumer markets, mainly in the developed world, will force them to redirect part of their traditional exports to other places. In the case of Norway, a country that generates significant aquaculture surpluses, the initiative has already been taken to invest directly in cultivation in its client countries, such as the USA, to limit with due anticipation the possible negative effect of these challenges. That country also leads efforts to establish new techniques for offshore cultivation.

Years pass, but world aquaculture volumes continue to be highly concentrated in a very small number of countries, led by China (56% of cultivation in 2022) and several other Asian countries, a continent that alone is responsible for 88.3% of aquaculture production in 2022, while LAC only generates 4.6% of harvests in that same year. Thus, middle-income countries (including China) generate 92.2% of harvest volumes in 2022, high-income countries (USA, Europe, Japan, Australia, and others) only 7.6%, and low-income countries, only 0.3%.

The concentration of crops by species is less noticeable but still pronounced, with 51.3% of volumes associated with the 10 predominant species, led by Ecuadorian shrimp. Except for this crustacean, various oysters, and the Japanese clam, the remaining 7 species correspond to freshwater fish, mainly carp, but also include Nile tilapia. These species have high demand in domestic Asian markets, whose consumption of animal protein are strongly linked to the intake of fish products in general. Tilapia, in turn, is already cultivated in many countries on several continents, having gained great relevance in the production and domestic consumption of nations such as Brazil and others.

Markets such as Japan and others in Europe already show some level of saturation in fish consumption by their population in recent years, and their more affluent inhabitants demand increasing amounts of other meat products, although they maintain their high level of fish and aquaculture product consumption. As well, countries such as the USA and the European Union heavily depend on fish imports and also show high per capita fish consumption levels. As long as these facts prevail, and even if intake levels no longer increase as before, LAC’s exportable aquaculture production will have significant market opportunities there and increasingly in middle-income and emerging nations in coming years. This does not mean that regional farming will be free of problems, as in the case of Ecuadorian shrimp production in 2023, which, reaching record levels, saw its prices drop drastically due to global overproduction, creating complex financial situations in many local shrimp companies.

In any case, global and LAC aquaculture will continue to advance, and the recently published figures for 2022 reaffirm this fact. Of course, as indicated, future scenarios will be subject to strong pressures for change, on account of climatological, technological, environmental, governance, market, and sustainability issues, which will force countries to develop new strategies, according to their realities, to take advantage of their best opportunities and avoid the eventual negative consequences of increasingly challenging scenarios.

[1] A la fecha de elaboración de este informe no había cifras agregadas disponibles de comercio exterior para 2022. Igualmente, no se puede diferenciar con precisión entre productos asimilables a la pesca extractiva de aquellos que provienen de la acuicultura. Adicionalmente, todas las cifras de comercio exterior de estos párrafos están expresadas en dólares del año 2021, y no de 2022, como ocurre con el resto del texto.

[2] La legislación/normativa para los cultivos offshore e inclusive RAS no se encuentra bien desarrollada a nivel mundial, y de ella depende que estas nuevas localizaciones sean viables, más baratas y fáciles de conseguir.

[3] Se hace notar que en años recientes se verifican nuevas tendencias proteccionistas en diversos países que pueden atentar contra la globalización del comercio pesquero internacional, tal como se le observa en la actualidad. Estas tendencias son difíciles de cuantificar, pero podrían generar dificultades a los exportadores tradicionales y emergentes de estos productos.

[4] Los datos de FAO cubren hasta el año 2021, pero no se utilizan las cifras para 2020 y 2021, porque ellas evidencian que han sido estimadas por esa institución a nivel mundial y que en las bases de dato Fishstat se les asigna el mismo valor que para 2019. Las cifras publicadas en Junio de 2024 en SOFIA 2024 (op.cit.) indican que el consumo humano total de productos pesquero en 2022 alcanzaría a unos 164,6 MM de tons, mientras el valor aparente por persona sería de 20,7 kilos. Los valores restantes expuestos en estos párrafos del texto han sido obtenidos de las bases de datos de consumo aparente de alimentos de FISHSTAT, y pueden no coincidir con cifras de otro origen.

[5] SOFIA 2024, op.cit.,página 103