Andalusia doubled its marine aquaculture production in 2015, with more than 10.600t.

The Andalusian Autonomous Community in 2015 doubled its marine aquaculture production to 10.673 tons, almost double that in 2014 (5.831 tons). A figure finds that they are meeting the objectives of the Andalusian Strategy for the Development of Marine Aquaculture for 2014-2020, which envisages tripling production in this period, and confirms the upward trend in this sector.

In fact, the aforementioned working document foresaw for last year 11.000 tons, a volume which approaches the production finally achieved.

This significant increase is mainly due to the fact that almost have beeb doubled yields of major dominant species so far: bream, sea bass, tuna, mussels, and even shrimp.

Also in 2015, the Andalusian aquaculture sold 10.671 tons of products obtained in the fattening stage, which generated 61.03 million, to which EUR 5.6 million from units produced in the hatchery phases are added ( incubation and hatchery) and nursery (prefattening or seedlings).

Fish production is the most important activity of marine Andalusian aquaculture, with 75% of the total tonnage sold and 94% of economic value. Follow mollusc production (22%), crustaceans (2.21%) and other species like algae, which represent only 0.06% of the tonnage, but 1.16% of the regional aquaculture billing.

Within the group of fish, sea bass is the most significant, representing 61.5% of the total, followed by gold (19.9%) and bluefin tuna (13.8%). Species such as mullet, corvina and sole are acquiring significant, especially the latter, which in 2015 reached 2.7% of production, with optimal prospects. There are currently two centers for the integrated production of sole.

With regard to shellfish farming, the higher is the mussel production, covering 95.3%. To a lesser extent followed by oysters, clams and clam Japanese; while in the case of crustaceans, the largest volume corresponds to shrimp, which accounts for 97.9% of a total of 236 tons.

Source: CAPDER