Aquaculture: The Blue Revolution

Aquaculture, also known as aqua-farming, is now frequently extolled as the “Blue Revolution” – a highly productive source of food, essential for feeding the world’s growing population in light of declining marine stocks. Since the 1990s, the contribution of aquaculture to global food production has been growing at an average compound rate of more than 10%, the world’s fastest growing form of food production (Karen, 2012). In many ways, this blue revolution is analogous to the crop revolution that had spread throughout the world in the 1960s. Much as how the green revolution was lauded as a solution for the problem of world hunger, the blue revolution is hailed as a way to increase the availability of affordable food among the poor and developing

Replacing the older “freedom of the seas” concept, the participating countries - namely the United Kingdom which had disputes with Iceland regarding fishing rights in the Atlantic - saw the need to create guidelines to address maritime problems that existed from the post-war era until today. Under the previous principle in the international law of the sea, nations were essentially free to claim and exploit resources and territories at will. Drawing from lessons learnt from the environmental fallouts of the green revolution, a large section of the UNCLOS is devoted to addressing environmental issues with regards to the ocean. The section, titled “Conservation and management of the living resources of the high seas”, spells out: “The Coastal State, taking into account the best scientific evidence available to it, shall ensure through proper conservation and management measures that the maintenance of living resources… is not endangered by over-exploitation.” (Section 2 Article

Often, these exclusive economic zones are marked out by governments for use by private enterprises, creating or exacerbating resource distribution inequalities. Aquaculture development now runs the risk of following the same pattern of industrial agricultural development, one that breeds inequitable access especially with regards to small-scale and communal farmers. As Neiland, Soley, Varley and Whitmarsh (2001) asserts, the distribution of resources and other advantages is biased in favor of those who have the necessary experiences for confronting the political bureaucracy of the city, and puts small-scale aqua farmers, whose assets are traditional knowledge of the water and climate, at a relative disadvantage. The sea bass and sea bream industry, for example, is now dominated by a handful or large multinational corporations - eg. Dias, Selonda, Nireus - as they benefit from scale economics and better access to capital (Jullien & Smith, 2015). Such problems will only be exacerbated as the industry