France was a pionneer in the development of the production of several species (trout, sea bass, sea bream) from 1970-1990, but recently, its productions has been at a standstill between 40 and 45.000 tons per year (in 2020, 37 514 t of salmonids, 5 847 t of marine fish , 2 982 t of pond fish),  essentially due to the difficult access to production sites and licenses. French production is high-quality, with some productions being very high value such as sturgeon caviar, for which France is one of the main producers in the world, smoked trout which continues to enjoy a great success, and sea bass and sea bream, which are highly prized on European markets.

As with many animal sectors, French aquaculture is experiencing a tension between the real success of its products and the questionning of its production methods. Due to this, questions associated with animal welfare, new production systems such as re-circulated circuits, aquaponics or integrated multitrophic aquaculture receive special attention, just like the multicriteria evaluation of aquaculture practices and systems. In fact other aspects, essential to the development on the long term, are the focus of long-term research, like sustainable feeding, using less fish meal and oils, preventing diseases using vaccines or genetic selection, controlling reproduction, meat quality, genetic selection for truly domesticated fish presenting good performances in farming and relisience to climate change. By combining these different approaches, research aims at developing a sustainable aquaculture that is both environmentally efficient and economically viable.

The aquaculture group including scientists from the seven Scientific Divisions of INRAE (AE, PHASE, SA, GA, TRANSFORM, ECOSOCIO, ECODIV) and engineers belonging to technical institutes, aims at analyzing the challenges  facing the sector.

For more information: