Canadian Aquaculture Industry: A Brief Outline

Deep Trekker is closely involved with fish farms around the world providing a reliable and easy to use inspection solution for submerged aquaculture structures. We proudly offer farmers a tool that allows them to keep a closer eye on their operations and ensures that they are also able to enact early measures to keep their sites sustainable.

The aquaculture industry is a cause of debate for many. Some believe that it can have a number of negative impacts on the environments in which it operates. That being said, there are also those who feel that the industry's economic and food source benefits outweigh the negative impacts. At Deep Trekker we are supporters of sustainable aquaculture operations. We understand that aquaculture provides an important source of food for the world’s population.

We are not saying that every single farm operates in a sustainable way and with minimal environmental impacts. However there are many that work very hard to reduce environmental impacts while producing high yields of healthy seafood.

In today’s post we are going to take a closer look at the Canadian Aquaculture industry by exploring the food it produces, the economic benefits it brings about and the jobs it creates.

In 1986 the Canadian aquaculture industry produced approximately 10 500 tonnes that amounted to $35 million revenue. Fast-forward 20 years to 2006 and production had grown to approximately 172 000 tonnes of product with a value of over $912 million. Today, fish farming accounts for 14% of the total Canadian fisheries production and 33% of its value.

The industry contributes to the economy and job creation in all of the provinces. According to the Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance, BC, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, PEI, Ontario are the largest aquaculture producing provinces.

See the table below for the jobs and production value for each of these provinces.

Today, over 8000 Canadians work directly in the industry. Another 8000 jobs have been created through the aquaculture supply and service sector.

Aquaculture, as an industry, has the potential to provide communities with stable jobs, better incomes and safe and healthy food. It is an industry dedicated to provide a healthy food source for a rising global population.

We work with many fish farmers and aquaculture professionals. One common trait we have found is their love of the industry and their priority to keep operations safe and sustainable. They want to make sure that the water they use to farm their fish is healthy, that the fish they are farming are healthy and happy and that the surrounding environments are not compromised.

As long as it’s sustainable, aquaculture is a very important and heavily relied upon industry.

To read about how Deep Trekker ROVs are used in the industry follow the link here.

Statistics and Table Collected from The Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance