Aquaculture efficiency and productivity: A comprehensive review and bibliometric analysis

Abstract

The scientific research on aquaculture efficiency and productivity has been increasing over the years. This study aims to identify the publication trends and growth potential of aquaculture efficiency and productivity studies. A bibliometric analysis was employed for a sample of 85 scientific articles published during the 1998–2020 period. The findings show that authors and institutions have close groups in collaboration networks. Through the citation analysis, three clusters were obtained that were related to the use of stochastic frontier analysis in an empirical application, Norwegian salmon aquaculture, and efficiency studies associated to freshwater aquaculture. For the temporal evolution of the keywords, earlier existing studies adopted a stochastic translog production function to assess the technical efficiency of aquaculture production, whereas later studies used data envelopment analysis, which focused on more diverse research objectives. The farms or subsectors of aquaculture in Norway, Bangladesh, and Vietnam have been analyzed in-depth for the efficiency and productivity in the existing studies. Education, experience, and age of farmers are often used as determinants to explain the variations in technical efficiency. The present study concludes that aquaculture efficiency and productivity research is not moving toward a mature stage. Several of the discovered issues are only focused on specific countries, and there is still room for methodological improvement in assessing aquaculture efficiency and productivity. Nevertheless, research collaborations are growing, and new research trends that are related to environmental regulation and pollution show great interest in aquaculture efficiency and productivity. This study provides a clear roadmap for researchers and practitioners to understand the publication patterns and hotspots in the research field.