It is found that the improved management techniques have reduce the environmental impacts of aquaculture, and so the growth of aquaculture is evitable. According to an assessment published in the January 2009 issue of BioScience the production of seafood will probably remain the most rapidly increasing food production system worldwide through 2025.
The assessment was done by James S. Diana of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, which revealed that despite well-publicized concerns about some harmful effects of aquaculture, the technique may, when practiced well, be no more damaging to biodiversity than other food production systems. Moreover, it may be the only way to supply growing demand for seafood as the human population increases.
Dr Diana informed that the total production from capture fisheries has remained approximately constant for the past 20 years and may decline. Since 1985 aquaculture, in contrast, has increased by 8.8 percent each year. Now it stands for about one-third of all aquatic harvest by weight. Finfish, molluscs and crustaceans dominate aquaculture production; seafood exports generate more money for developing countries than meat, coffee, tea, bananas, and rice combined.
Dr Diana told that there are some harmful effects of aquaculture such as the escape of farmed species that then become invasive, pollution of local waters by effluent, especially from freshwater systems, and land-use change associated with shrimp aquaculture in particular. But recently it is found that some harmful effects have diminished as management techniques have improved, and aquaculture has the potential to provide much-needed employment in developing countries.
