WS4: Aquaculture’s market potential in the EU: ensuring food security & trade balance in a sustainable blue economy

The recently adopted European Ocean Pact establishes a coordinated framework to align EU policies for the ocean, marine ecosystems, blue economy, food security, and competitiveness. It emphasises boosting the competitiveness of the EU sustainable blue economy, which explicitly includes aquaculture among its components. Aquaculture is recognised in the Ocean Pact (and related statements) not just as a tool for food provision but also for its potential role in ecosystem services, innovation (blue bioeconomy), sustainable feed/seaweed/algae, and regional development. Despite this, the EU’s aquaculture sector has shown only modest growth in recent years. The workshop intends to explore how EU aquaculture can overcome the challenges that constrain it, so as to exploit its largely untapped potential.