Forecasting salmon market volatility is crucial for reducing future uncertainty for market participants. This study explores the efficacy of the Long Short-term Memory (LSTM) network, a deep learning technique, in forecasting multi-step ahead salmon market volatility. The performance of the LSTM is assessed against a constructed volatility proxy and the Autoregressive Moving Average (ARMA) model, a traditional benchmark in time-series analysis. Evaluation is performed across various forecasting horizons using different forecast error measures. Our findings indicate that the ARMA model outperforms the LSTM in predicting salmon market volatility, suggesting that any non-linear patterns in the salmon market volatility might be too insignificant for an LSTM model to exploit effectively. However, we observed a significant discrepancy between the actual volatility values and the forecasts obtained by both models, indicating the complexity of accurately predicting salmon market volatility.

Previous research has shown that Norwegian aquaculture did not report being much affected by COVID-19 but had a strong response to the pandemic regarding cost reductions, market development, and business network development. In this study, we take a step further and investigate if COVID-19 affectedness and responsiveness were consistent across the aquaculture industry’s value chain. Also, we investigate if aquaculture industry involvement explains how firms were affected by and responded to the pandemic. Reexamining survey data from Norway shows that the firms, independent of value chain position or industry involvement, were not hit particularly hard by COVID-19 compared to firms in the manufacturing industry as a reference group. In addition, we show that the response to the pandemic in terms of cost reductions, market development, and business network development was strong across the value chain – chiefly among firms involved in producing or selling sea products and providing equipment and consulting services – compared to firms in the manufacturing industry. Finally, the response to the pandemic was consistently strong, independent of industry involvement. We conclude that aquaculture firms, across the value chain and independent of industry involvement, had a strong positive response to COVID-19, albeit not much affected.

Fish consumption in developing countries like Bangladesh is increasing with increasing aquaculture production; however, consumers are becoming more aware and concerned about food quality issues. This study investigates consumer preferences and willingness to pay for farmed fish quality attributes in Bangladesh using logit and hedonic price models, respectively. A total of 800 consumers were interviewed about four farmed fish species: pangasius, tilapia, rui and catla using a semi-structured questionnaire. The results showed that catla belongs to the higher price segment, whereas pangasius and tilapia belong to the lower price segment. The results also indicate that price, availability, affordability, safety, nutritional characteristics and socioeconomic characteristics like consumer age, years of schooling, number of kids and household members are significant determinants of consumer preferences. The results furthermore confirmed that consumers pay a price premium for larger fish, its firm and elastic texture, transparent eyes and taste, whereas purchasing a higher quantity, whole fish, fish with odor or swollen abdomen and comparatively more bones reduce the price of farmed fish.

In developing countries, food safety is an important predictor of consumer attitude when purchasing fish. This paper explores factors affecting the choice of retail markets and consumers’ Willingness to Pay (WTP) for safe fish in Bangladesh. Cross-sectional data were collected through a consumer survey (n = 420) in two major cities. Factor analysis, multinomial logit model, and log-linear regression were employed to investigate the latent structure of a set of variables; assess factors affecting consumers’ WTP and their choices of retail markets for safe fish. The study outcomes demonstrate that consumers perceived the production method as the more influential attribute in choosing safe fish, and their WTP for production method is higher than for safety claims. High earners and female customers with a heightened safety awareness have the strongest preference for safe fish from supermarkets. In contrast, low-income consumers only are more likely to buy safe fish at wet markets. For a high-income level, the presence of a minor in the family, a low number of family members, willingness to join an Environmental Club, and a positive attitude toward attributes substantially influence consumers’ WTP for safe fish positively.

The recent growth and development of aquaculture industry in Bangladesh demand a thorough investigation of price volatility spillover pattern among capture fisheries and aquaculture products. Utilizing nationally representative monthly retail price data of the last seventeen years, we identify the evidence of volatility spillover effects among capture fisheries and aquaculture markets. We find three phases of fish price movements: (1) fish prices, in general, were increasing prior to 2013 with higher fluctuations and structural breaks; (2) prices were comparatively stable from 2013 to 2019 for almost all markets with sporadic shocks; (3) increasing trajectory of fish prices are observed during the COVID-19 period. We also find that all the aquaculture products have significant direct or indirect long-run volatility spillover effect to capture fish market. We identify only one aquaculture product with a significant positive own price asymmetric effect indicating negative news increases the price volatility behavior in its own market. Our findings may play a vital role in implementing suitable food security policies and reducing overexploitation of natural resources. Policies promoting fish price stability should prioritize tilapia and pangasius markets, and targeted investments in the aquaculture industry should be made to promote greater stability in the fisheries and aquaculture market.

There is a dearth of information on empirical studies on the impact of fish biodiversity on the welfare of farmers. Hence, it is important to investigate the role fish biodiversity, as a risk management measure, plays in the welfare status of aquaculture farmers in Ondo State, Nigeria. A multistage sampling procedure was employed in picking 192 respondents. Data were analyzed using the marginal treatment effects (MTE) approach to estimate treatment effect heterogeneity and policy-relevant treatment effects (PRTE) to simulate the effect of policy change. The empirical findings show that there is a huge heterogeneity in the gains from the adoption of fish biodiversity as a risk management measure concerning observed and unobserved factors. The results indicate that fish biodiversity adoption significantly increases revenue and reduces the poverty level of fish farming households at the reduced level of unobserved resistance to adoption. Also, PRTE results reveal that adoption rates of fish biodiversity could be significantly raised through the enhancement of fish biodiversity training and access to fish biodiversity information sources. Therefore, adoption of fish biodiversity as a risk management measure should be the priority of policymakers whose focus is on how to improve farm revenue and reduce poverty among aquaculture farmers.

This paper applies cost-benefit analysis to assess social and private net benefits from rainbow trout and European whitefish aquaculture under recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) and marine net cage technologies. In addition to private investment and operational costs, we include eutrophication damage from nutrients and value the fish produced by its producer price. The assessment is made in terms of annualized present value of net benefits. We find that net cage production outperforms RAS by a wide margin for rainbow trout production. For the European whitefish, RAS narrows this gap considerably, but net cage production still receives higher net benefits. We extend our discussion to the specific challenge of the Weser ruling of the EU’s Water Framework Directive, which effectively hinders expansion of aquaculture production, and examine whether one-time offsets would provide aquaculture the possibility to expand production. We find that one-time offsetting provides higher net benefits compared to not offsetting with both technologies but is easier to execute for RAS.

The technical efficiency of the African catfish production in Nigeria was assessed. A total of 609 farms were sampled, and 1,118 operations were recorded covering both the pre-COVID and COVID periods. A translog stochastic frontier modeling approach was used to simultaneously assess the technical efficiencies and the determinants of technical inefficiency of the catfish farmers. The mean technical efficiency for the catfish production in Nigeria is 85.4% indicating a scope of increasing production by 14.6% given the current technological state, which could contribute an additional 42,273 metric tons of fish to Nigeria’s aquaculture. Comparative analysis showed that catfish producers during the COVID-19 period and producers from the Southern region were more technically efficient. The effect of management-dependent determinants is presented. Beyond management approaches, technical efficiency is seen to be improved significantly through the use of quality inputs. Based on these, measures for successful catfish production in Nigeria are recommended.

This study aimed to examine the characteristics of clusters and the factors that influence the profitability of rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) farming in Abancay province (Apurimac, Peru). The area is located in the Andes mountains at an altitude of 2,378 meters. Information was collected through a questionnaire. The sample consisted of 100% of the aquaculture farmers registered in the National Aquaculture Registry of the Ministry of Production of Peru for the area. Fish farmers were classified as LRA (limited resource aquaculture) or MSAE (micro and small aquaculture enterprise) according to their production category, however there were also fish farmers who fit into both categories. Four conglomerates were identified, monoculture fish farmers (only trout) from micro and small businesses, mixed fish farmers (trout production plus other activities) with 1–2 years of experience in the activity, mixed fish farmers who produce for consumption and familiar enterprises using unpaid labor, and an extensive system with mixed fish farmers who produce for self-consumption. It was also found that years of experience, water source, sales market, and the main activity were related to profitability.

The aquaculture industry has experienced substantial growth for many years. Moreover, high growth rates are projected to continue into the foreseeable future. Compared to other aquaculture species, salmon farming is one of the most capital-intensive seafood industries, requiring substantial investments in working capital, fixed assets, intangible assets (i.e., licenses), and innovation. Meanwhile, this industry is exposed to both production risk and demand uncertainty. Surprisingly, investment behavior in the salmon farming sector has attracted very little research. In this study, we examine how investments in the Norwegian aquaculture sector are affected by macroeconomic and industry-specific uncertainty, cash flows, and leverage. In line with studies in other sectors, we find that cash flows are a significant determinant of investment behavior. However, our results on the relationship between uncertainty and capital formation contrast similar studies on natural resource-based industries.