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“Freshwater species, like carp, pangasius, and tilapia, will be responsible for most of the increase in the aquafarming production and will account for 60% of the total production in 2025” FAO.

According to the latest data of the FAO, the production of fish from marine and coastal aquaculture was 6.9 million tons at the closing of 2014, a figure that represents only 43% of the world production of inland aquaculture species, which was 16 million tons at the closing of that same year.

This international organization expects the production of freshwater species, such as carp, pangasius, and tilapia, to become the aquafarming cultivations with a greater growth rate in the next 7 years, and that they will get to represent up to 60% of the world aquafarming production by the year 2025.

This information could provide some orientation to the departments of aquaculture in many countries, so they can define their Aquafarming Promotion policies in accordance with the objectives of the Agneda 2030 of the FAO, which seeks the worldwide eradication of poverty and hunger by the year 2050.

In an industry like aquaculture, which presents infinite possibilities for the development of species susceptible to commercial production, the State priorities often lost out into multiple discretionary efforts in terms of the interests of the government employee in power, of the ideas and projects of the academic officials closest to them, or of the incisive influences of businessmen where at the end, when the damages are tallied, the results suggest there was an excessive squandering of public resources in developing fishfarms of all sorts of species with meager and limited results, which contribute very little to the growth of aquafarming in the country in which the reference is made.

On the basis of these predictions from the FAO, supported by scientific studies and economic models, we already know that, if the State intends to contribute to ensuring food, the aquafarming species it should prioritize are mainly carp and tilapia, and pangasius.

In countries where they have high malnutrition rates and zones with high marginalization and poverty, public resources should be oriented towards the consolidation of the production of these species and towards their processing, industrialization, distribution, and commercialization.

The amount of direct and indirect jobs that can be generated with the development of these species, including the whole production chain up to commercialization, is unparalleled by no other industry from the primary sector.

Source: Salvador Meza. Editor & Publisher of Aquaculture Magazine.