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The Sustainability of Fishery and the Aquacultural Sector

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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (28 February 2022) | Viewed by 14683

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Rosaria Viscecchia

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Guest Editor

Department of Agricultural Sciences, Food, Natural Resources and Engineering, University of Foggia, 71121 Foggia, Italy
Interests: economics of obesity; functional food and health-related claims; consumer behavior; consumers’ acceptance of food innovation; sustainable food consumption; food waste
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Biagia De Devitiis

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Guest Editor

Department of Agricultural Sciences, Food, Natural Resources and Engineering, University of Foggia, 71121 Foggia, Italy
Interests: consumer behavior; consumer’s acceptance of food innovation; functional food and health-related claims; sustainable food consumption; food waste; economics of obesity; consumer social responsibility
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Dr. Francesco Bimbo

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Guest Editor

Department of Agricultural Sciences, Food, Natural Resources and Engineering, University of Foggia, 71121 Foggia, Italy
Interests: agri-food marketing; supply chain management; health economics; empircal economics and applied econometrics
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Prof. Rocco Roma

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Guest Editor

Department of Agro-Environmental and Territorial Sciences, University of Bari, 70126 Bari, Italy
Interests: sustainable development; agrifood; life cycle assessment
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Prof. Annalisa De Boni

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Department of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, University of Bari Aldo Moro, 70126 Bari, Italy
Interests: Economic and environmental aspects of agro-food production; organic production, consumer behavior; consumers' acceptance for innovative foods; agro-food products marketing; economics and politics of fish production and aquaculture; agricultural policy and rural development

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The market demand for fish has risen over the last two decades and has been mostly satisfied by wild-captured fish. However, wild captures are close to the maximum sustainable supply, and this calls for industry, practitioners, and scholars to develop new sustainable methods, techniques, and systems to meet market demand for fish. Aquaculture is developing as an alternative source to wild-captured fish, whose market performance is improving. The EU aquaculture sector reached 1.4 million tons in sales volume and EUR 4.9 billion in sales value in 2016. For the development of the aquacultural sector that satisfies the market demand for fish, sustainable fish production, and guaranteed income for fishers and entrepreneurs, many challenges need to be overcome—the weak and fragmented market structure of aquacultural farms; the competition and conflicts inside fishing and aquacultural factories (e.g., large-scale fisheries/aquacultural factories vs. small-scale fishing/aquacultural factories) and toward non-fishing sectors (e.g., other industries, tourism); weak governance and lack of synergy; weak stakeholder participation in decision-making and difficulty in adopting innovation; climate change; the rise of consumer interest in innovative products with high quality and service content and additional information on the product, such as safety guarantee and quality marks. Besides this, aquaculture itself needs to implement sustainable production methods as it can impact the environment, such as through the problem of fish meal for feed produced by natural fish; fish diseases, drugs, and drug-resistant bacteria development; water and/or sediment contamination of the aquaculture field management.

Thus, this Special Issue encourages researchers, practitioners, companies, and institutions from different geographical areas to exchange knowledge, practices, and rules for sustainable development of the aquaculture sector, adding value to the product, supporting local development respecting the environment, and not depleting natural resources.

This Sustainability Special Issue calls for papers documenting the nutritional value of fish, as well as the economic importance of supplying the consumer's demand for fish without depleting natural resources through sustainable fishery and aquaculture.

We welcome different types of manuscript submissions, including original research articles and up-to-date reviews (systematic reviews and meta-analyses).

Potential topics may include, but are not limited to, the documentation of the environmental impact of the multiple farmed fish systems as well as of the entire fish supply chain across different geographical areas; the importance of fish products for local economic development; marine fish depletion and sustainable captures to ensure adequate quantity/quality of fish to consumers; sustainable management practices aimed to increase the nutritional quality/quantity of fish as well as to increase the economic suitability of the sector; consumer preferences for fishery and aquaculture products with environmental certified schemes; innovative management practices ensuring the quality of products and rise in producer income.

Prof. Rosaria Viscecchia
Prof. Biagia De Devitiis
Dr. Francesco Bimbo
Prof. Rocco Roma
Prof. Annalisa De Boni
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

sustainable fish supply chain
sustainable fishing systems, techniques, and management practices
environmental impact of farming fish systems, techniques, and management practices
geographical differences in environmental impact of farming fishing systems, techniques, and management practices
market preferences for fish from sustainable farming practices
economic sustainability of farmed fish production systems
sustainable farming fish production and local development.

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

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14 pages, 278 KiB

Open AccessArticle

How Do Italian Consumers Value Sustainable Certifications on Fish?—An Explorative Analysis

by Francesco Bimbo, Rosaria Viscecchia, Biagia De Devitiis, Antonio Seccia, Rocco Roma and Annalisa De Boni

Sustainability 2022, 14(6), 3654; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14063654 - 21 Mar 2022

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 1944

Abstract

Sustainable certifications communicate the environmental benefits of food products to consumers, and allow producers to differentiate their products from conventional ones. This study expands existing knowledge on fish consumers by assessing the importance of sustainable certifications in fish selection. A best–worst analysis was applied to a convenient sample of Italian household members responsible for food shopping, segmented with a latent class clustering model based on their socio-demographic characteristics, fish purchase behaviors, as well as attitudinal features. The results show that sustainable certifications were of interest to consumers, as more than 1 out of 10 respondents valued sustainable certifications in purchasing fish. Respondents interested in sustainable certifications on fish were medium-aged consumers, with high working status, well educated, as well as living in a medium-size household without children. These consumers were more interested in organic foods and had an interest in food nutritional information; they likely have a healthy holistic lifestyle, and may purchase organic food, including fish, to improve their health by increasing their physical well-being. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Sustainability of Fishery and the Aquacultural Sector)

10 pages, 1573 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Effect of Vegetable Growth on Content and Composition of Antibiotics in Litopenaeus vannamei Pond Sediments in Crop/Aquacultural Rotation Process

by Bihan Gu, Feipeng Li, Yanru Liu, Lingchen Mao and Hong Tao

Sustainability 2021, 13(15), 8400; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13158400 - 28 Jul 2021

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1857

Abstract

Photodegradation remains the major pathway of antibiotic removal in natural ponds. This study introduced a new method of growing vegetables on the bottom substrate of shrimp ponds to improve sediment quality. The aim of the study was to investigate the effect of vegetable planting on the photodegradation of antibiotics. This study characterized antibiotic levels in the pond sediment during this phytoremediation process and investigated the antibiotic content and composition of the sediment with and without crop rotation (traditional control), as well as the shrimp yields. The results showed that total antibiotics (e.g., trimethoprim, oxytetracycline, and norfloxacin) in the sediment of all aquaculture ponds continuously decreased from 44.78 ± 4.07 μg/kg to 18.80 ± 2.26 μg/kg in the crop rotation pond. The total amount of antibiotics consistently decreased in all ponds, and the rate of decline did not greatly differ. However, oxytetracycline in the crop rotation pond decreased faster than in the control pond, presumably because the growing vegetables altered the sediment and microbial-community characteristics that promoted oxytetracycline degradation. In the following year, there was little difference in the levels of norfloxacin or oxytetracycline between the two ponds. An increase in trimethoprim in the control pond was much higher than in the crop-growing sediment. It was indicated that the system remediated the shrimp pond ecosystem as well as providing the possibility of increasing profits by planting vegetables in the winter idle period of shrimp ponds. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Sustainability of Fishery and the Aquacultural Sector)

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Review

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15 pages, 663 KiB

Open AccessReview

Biofloc Systems for Sustainable Production of Economically Important Aquatic Species: A Review

by Muziri Mugwanya, Mahmoud A. O. Dawood, Fahad Kimera and Hani Sewilam

Sustainability 2021, 13(13), 7255; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13137255 - 29 Jun 2021

Cited by 50 | Viewed by 9632

Abstract

The increasing global population has led to an increase in food demand; consequently, aquaculture is one of the food production sectors that has offered opportunities to alleviate hunger, malnutrition, and poverty. However, the development of a sustainable aquaculture industry has been hindered by the limited availability of natural resources as well as its negative impact on the surrounding environment. Hence, there is an urgent need to search for better aquacultural production systems that, despite their high productivity and profitability, utilize fewer resources such as water, energy, land, and capital in conjunction with a negligible impact on the environment. Biofloc technology (BFT) is one of the most exciting and promising sustainable aquaculture systems; it takes into account the intensive culture of aquatic species, zero water exchange, and improved water quality as a result of beneficial microbial biomass activity, which, at the same time, can be utilized as a nutritious aquaculture feed, thus lowering the costs of production. Furthermore, BFT permits the installation of integrated multi-trophic aquaculture (IMTA) systems in which the wastes of one organism are utilized as feed by another organism, without a detrimental effect on co-cultured species. This review, therefore, highlights the basics of BFT, factors associated with BFT for the successful production of aquatic species, the significance of this food production system for the sustainable production of economically important aquatic species, its economic aspects, drawbacks, limitations, and recommended management aspects for sustainable aquaculture. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Sustainability of Fishery and the Aquacultural Sector)

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