European sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax) is an economically important cultured fish species along the Mediterranean coast, being the EU is one of the largest producers of sea bass in the world (STECF, 2021). It is generally accepted that the highest recurring cost in grow-out aquaculture comes from feeding . Manufactured feed often represents between the 50 and 70 percent of operating costs, being one of the key components of any cage aquaculture operation so that a ppropriate feed management techniques and/or improvements i n feeding may contribute to the appropriate utilization of feed without increasing the cost of production. According to Hasan and New (2013), better management can reduce the feed cost to the extent of 15-20%. T he intensive salmon farming, for example, has benefited from huge improvements in feed efficiency and the reduction of operating costs using pa lletized diets along with modern feeding technology (Blyth and Dodd, 2002). Hence, adopting specific measures to limit the magnitude and incidence of feeding in fish farming will lead to improvements in production efficiency.
The aim of this work is to evaluate the economic impact of the implementation of automatic feeders in a typical sea bass grow-out farm producing 450-g fish . For it, we have used a deterministic static model to simulate the annual income statement of three farms according to different annual production capacities ( a micro, small, and medium-large farm) and carry out partial budget and investment appraisal analyses . M odel parameters were set up using data obtained from ten European facilities located in the Mediterranean Sea and validated for experts in the field. The impact on the farm’s operational factors assumed for this analysis is showed in Table 1, whereas o ur results are presented in Tables 2 and 3.