Handbook on Opensea Cage Culture

The cage aquaculture has grown very rapidly during the past 20 years and is presently undergoing rapid changes in response to pressures from globalization and a growing global demand for aquatic products. Recent studies have predicted that fish consumption in developing and developed countries will increase by 57 percent and 4 percent, respectively. Rapid population growth, increasing affluence and urbanization in developing countries are leading to major changes in supply and demand for animal protein, from both livestock and fish. Within aquaculture production systems, there has been a move towards the clustering of existing cages as well as toward the development and use of more intensive cage-farming systems. In particular, the need for suitable sites has resulted in the cage culture sector accessing and expanding into new untapped open-water culture areas such as coastal brackish and marine offshore waters