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MedAID presented his work on Social Acceptability at the Aquaculture Technical Seminar of the Open Method Coordination for Aquaculture, Brussels, 27 November 2018.

The Aquaculture Technical Seminar is part of the  European Commission Open Method Coordination for Aquaculture. Within this framework, DG MARE coordinates the exchange of good practices between Member States by organizing twice a year a workshop at technical level, attended by experts from Member States administrations (see https://ec.europa.eu/fisheries/cfp/aquaculture/good-practises_en). Almost all Member States are represented by around two experts per Member State, since aquaculture usually falls within the remit of several Administrations/Ministries.

This second edition of the Aquaculture Technical Seminar (2018) has discussed various topics. One of them being Social Acceptability, on which MedAID is working in its Work Package 7 on “Social acceptability and governance of aquaculture development in the Mediterranean”. WP7 Leader, Dr. José Pérez from Ifremer, presented the objectives of this WP and the results collected so far. The presentation was followed by a round table discussion addressing some additional issues about good practices to enhance social acceptability of aquaculture at national level.  As un example, aquaculture in Finland is contested and the Administration has opened a dialogue process with stakeholders to discuss aquaculture sustainability. In Italy big efforts have been made to improve the perception of aquaculture products through communication campaigns.

Delegations from the Ministries of European Member States attended this Technical Seminar on Aquaculture. In total, about fourty people attended this meeting.

Aquaculture Day 2018 was celebrated on 26 November at the Institut d’Estudis Catalans with 35 participants from aquaculture companies (14),  academia (11), fisheries and aquaculture authorities (2) as well as 4 cluster and  professional network managers and MSc & Ph D Students.

The workshop began with the presentation of aquaculture and research projects in Catalonia: “Development of methods for stimulating sperm production in farmed Senegalese sole” (Dr. François Chauvigne), the European projects “Vivaldi”, “MedAID” (Dr. Dolors Furones) and “PerformFish” (Dr. Francesc Padrós) as well as “Development of seafood productions through co-creation projects ” (Dr.Luís Guerrero). The presentations were followed by a roundtable discussion addressing keys to understanding the future of research in aquaculture.

Afterwards, the relationship between aquaculture and industry was dicussed in the round table “Experiences of innovative businesses of the Acuiplus Cluster” followed by some general conclusions.

Several MedAID partners have participated as invited experts in the meeting of the Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries (STECF) for the Economic Report of the EU Aquaculture sector (de EWG 18-19), JRC Ispra, 22 to 26 October 2018.

Rasmus Nielsen from the University of Copenhagen, and partner of MedAID, has chaired the meeting, which was also attended by the following MedAID partners:Jose Manuel Fernández-Polanco and Ignacio Llorente from the University of Cantabria, Maria Cozzolino from NISEA, Lamprakis Avdelas from Greece.

The objective of this Expert Working Group meeting is to prepare the 2018 report on the economic performance of the EU aquaculture sector, to analyse and comment on the economic performance of the EU and national aquaculture sectors between 2008 and 2016. It will include specific sections on employment (e.g.female/male employment and average salaries), economic performance contrasting different segments, and productivity/employee at EU level as well as a brief summary for each national chapter. The two main objectives for the 2018 exercise are to increase qualitative interpretation of all data outputs and to increase the usefulness of the report for DG MARE’s policy development as well as for Member States and the industry.

This aquaculture report is one of the main source for providing socio-economic analysis on the performance of the EU aquaculture industry. Different reports about Economic Analysis of European fleet, processing, and  aquaculture sectors can be found here, included the previous report  EU of the Aquaculture sector published in 2016, which reported for the period between 2008 and 2014.

The General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean (GFCM), a regional fisheries management organization (RFMO) established within the FAO with main objective to ensure the conservation and the sustainable use, at the biological, social, economic and environmental level, of living marine resources and the sustainable development of aquaculture in the Mediterranean and in the Black Sea, organized a workshop on animal health and risk analysis in finfish aquaculture.

The workshop was held in Larnaca, Cyprus, on 3-4 October 2018 and gathered experts from more than 20 countries. The main objectives were, among others, to assess the current situation regarding early diagnostics in fish farms, regulation, capacity in diagnostics, control and prevention of diseases, epidemiological knowledge, governance and challenges for aquatic animal health.
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