Sustainable Aquaculture from Students’ Perspectives

Due to its nutritional value and health benefits, regular consumption of fish should be encouraged at all stages of life. Considering the fact that the majority of the world’s marine fish stocks are being exploited, aquaculture is the only way to ensure an adequate supply. Aquaculture production should be sustainable and it should integrate environmental, social, and economic dimensions. Students, as a valuable segment of consumers, are future decision-makers in society and can contribute to sustainable development as agents of change. In this study, 224 students from the University of Rijeka (68 males and 156 females) with an average age of 21.5±1.4 years were included. The aim of this study was to obtain information about the most important aspects of sustainable aquaculture from their point of view. Descriptive statistics was used to analyse the sample characteristics, while statistical significance difference between males and females was computed using an independent t-test and Pearson’s chi-square test. The obtained results confirmed that the most important features of sustainable aquaculture were: minimal use of hormones and drugs, no environmental pollution, and production close to nature. Female participants consider more important protection of endangered species (p=0.04) and respect for fish welfare (p=0.01), while male participants are much more aware of supporting rural areas (p=0.04) and low technical level in production (p=0.04). Quality also emerged as an important component in an open-ended question, together with environmental factors. Furthermore, there is an opportunity to enhance students’ interest in eco-labels, since it did not receive very high importance among this student group (3.60 ± 1.20 and 3.82 ± 0.90). In the future, nutrition education provided by institutions could be an important tool in preparing future generations for sustainable society.