Swedish aquaculture and the regulations of today and tomorrow – an economic perspective

The potential environmental benefits associated with aquaculture, e.g. climate-friendly food production, have triggered a political will to increase aquaculture production. However, the growth of the sector has been remarkably slow in Sweden.

Part of the slow growth has been contributed to a complicated regulatory system in place to correct for the negative externalities.

When correcting for externalities, economic efficiency should be taken into consideration as efficient regulations will result in an output level of aquaculture production that is competitive and sustainable in the long run.

Hence, there is a need to investigate how externalities can be corrected in Swedish aquaculture in the most efficient way.The purpose of this project is to provide knowledge on how current and potential future regulations affect competitiveness and sustainability of aquaculture production in Sweden.

We perform a literature review where economic literature on the effects of aquaculture regulations in developed countries is the main theme.

We also investigate economic studies of regulations of agriculture and discuss if similar regulations could be applied to aquaculture.

Finally, we investigate the possibilities for the private market to gain from eco-certification and labelling of products from aquaculture.

Hopefully, the insights from our review can be used by policy makers and other stakeholders to increase the functioning of regulations aimed at the aquaculture sector.