Aquaculture has been around for millennia but only started to contribute significantly to the global food supply and rural livelihoods about 30 years ago. Whereas aquaculture provided just 7% of fish for human consumption in 1974, this share had increased to 26% in 1994 and 54% in 2018 with 114.5 million tonnes of production, and it is expected to increase by 62% by 2030 (FAO, 2020).
The Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) 23 members states represented together 26.2 million tonnes of aquaculture production, representing 17% of the world volume production in 2018 . The development of aquaculture in the IORA region is also recent, the production multiplied almost 6-fold over the past two decades to represent almost USD 39 billion to IORA members states economy in 2018 (FAO). Analysis of the type of aquaculture and species used show the predominance of small- scale aquaculture and the ascendancy of 6 species, over the 80 cultured, representing 80% of the Indian Ocean production (in volume).
All member states of IORA are not at the same development stage of their aquaculture, five countries alone represent 69% of the Association’s production and some countries have almost no aquaculture activities. The member states can be shared into three thematic categories:
a. “Mature aquaculture sector development”: countries where the aquaculture sector represents more than 30% of national fisheries products with important sector development and dynamism.
b. “Emerging aquaculture sector”: countries still have low or no aquaculture production but with an important potential for development. In these countries, the aquaculture sector remains nascent and with low levels of production even if some timely development can be noticed.
c. “High technical aquaculture development”: Some members of IORA have chosen to develop aquaculture species with high value (based on their national market or for export). This form of aquaculture requires infrastructure and important technical and technological skills.
This disparity has several roots causes, from size of the country and its population, areas suitable for aquaculture, traditional social structure in rural areas, development approaches, market dynamisms and accessibility and experiences of aquaculture production. The different experiences between members of IORA offer opportunities to share lessons learnt on the approaches of aquaculture development, the drivers, the successes, and the pitfalls.
From an analysis of past experiences, some key requirements for sustainable and viable projects can be observed. Five requirements can be discerned:
a. Good environment for aquaculture development and governance;
b. Structures and inputs for small-scale aquaculture development;
c. Knowledge and technology – Strengthening human capacity and communication;
d. Support for business investment and economic development;
e. Sustainability approach.
The promotion of sustainable aquaculture development in the implementation of the IORA Action Plan (2017-2021) focuses on sustainable aquaculture practices, focussing on rural and coastal communities in IORA MS, including SIDS and LDCs and will be showcased in the presentation.