Definition of data collection needs for aquaculture All Europe

DG MARE Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (European Commission) - Project Dates:
September 2007 - August 2008

Description of Project:
The EU strategy aims at developing aquaculture in order to strengthen and diversify local rural economies. Aquaculture will continue to be supported under the European Fisheries Fund. In order to formulate effective policies, the EC requires detailed and up-to-date information on the economic performance of this sector.

The objective of this study is to identify the data required to assess the evolution and economic performance of the aquaculture sector and the best mechanisms for collecting this data.

In the past years and decades many national institutes and organizations have developed cost efficient data collection schemes, incl. definitions of economic indicators, database strucures and quality control systems. The approach has been to utilise this existing experience in related areas, namely FADN for agriculture and DCR for marine fisheries.

Services Provided:
Poseidon participated in the methodological design for data collection over all the EU Member States, working with representatives from through-out Europe. Poseidon went on to apply this methodology to the UK, covering Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In the first instance this characterised and quantified the different aquaculture segments and developed a sampling framework within all the main categories. They then went on to collect economic data through a combination of telephone interviews, questionnaires and public information access to present a detailed review of the economic status of aquaculture in the UK. This was followed by meetings with all the UK fisheries administrations to assess data collection techniques and to develop ideas on how new economic data on UK aquaculture might be collected through an expanded DCF. We worked extensively with the UK aquaculture producer organisations (e.g., BTA, SSPO, etc.) to maximise stakeholder participation an engagement in the work.