According to a recent report by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (Abares), aquaculture has surpassed wild-caught fish for the first time in terms of gross value of production (GVP) in 2021–2022, reaching a peak value of more than $2 billion. It is now Australia's most lucrative seafood industry. The sector's GVP climbed 9% in 2021 and now makes up 56% of the entire seafood industry's worth.
As the current president of the North Queensland Red Claw Farmers Association, Valverde has watched the sector develop from modest farms to a fiercely competitive and economically viable alternative to the old-fashioned wild-catch fishing. "We're in the fortunate position that if we can't sell today, we can just leave them in the ponds, they just keep getting bigger and worth more and we can sell them later, we always get our money back," he said. He continued by saying that a bigger worry was a labor shortage. We don't have enough farmers to produce, he added, and that is what holds us back. To improve supply, "we urgently need more farmers to produce, but there are a lot of new people getting into it because the prices are so good."
Dr. Kelly Condon, an aquaculture expert and researcher at James Cook University, said the business was expanding as a result of significant investment and enhancements to its resilience and productivity. Production in aquaculture is really effective, she noted. She said that labor and electricity are the two major expenditures. However, the farm can be very successful with a significantly higher production per unit area if you reach the economy of scale. One hectare of land may easily produce 10,000 kg of stock, and the outcome will be much more constant.
Compared to deep-sea fishing vessels, aquacultural production is less dependent on oil, which, according to Condon, has been beneficial at this period of fluctuating fuel prices worldwide. However, she acknowledged that there was a "trade-off" because fish farms were more directly impacted by electricity prices. Fish farms, according to Valverde, were less exposed to the market than wild-caught fish since they had more supply-side control.
According to the Abares agricultural prediction, despite a fall in real value in 2022–2023 as pandemic price spikes stabilize, aquaculture will continue to expand and will account for 64% of all seafood GVP by 2027–2028.