This article presents the history of integrated farming in aquaculture through a Hungarian case study. The development of Hungarian integrated aquaculture is aligned with global trends. In the previous millennium, the utilization of the nutrients introduced into the system was the main aspect of the integration. In Hungary, technologies that integrated fish production with growing crops and animal husbandry appeared, including for example: large-scale fish-cum-rice production; fish-cum-duck production; and integrated pig-fish farming which were introduced in the second half of the 20th century. Today, the emphasis is on integrating the use of the kind of feed where the main goal is to minimize nutrient loads in the surrounding natural ecosystems and to maximize the utilization of the unit’s water resources. The various modern integrated freshwater aquaculture systems, such as intensive fish production combined with wetland, recirculation aquaculture system and multi-functional aquaculture, have proved their viability. However, the future opportunities for these systems have not always been properly recognized and acknowledged when the future of European aquaculture is discussed.

This paper provides a comparative overview of decadal changes in aquaculture production in the European Union (EU-27) and Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). Contrary to other regions of the world, freshwater fish farming in these two territories is a marginal sub-segment of the aquaculture sector. Using an indicator-based approach, we track development tendencies in freshwater aquaculture, focusing on the main established and emerging species, diversification, and shifts in the mean trophic level of farmed animals. Geographical patterns in production trends are revealed in both regions. The study attempts to explain between-region and between-country differences in aquaculture growth by analyzing freshwater resource endowments at region-level and country-level, using total renewable water resources (TRWR) as an indicator of water-abundancy. Thermal optimum of main produced species is matched against climate conditions prevailing in main producer countries to provide further understanding of spatial heterogeneity in growth rates of aquaculture sector.

Although carp farming had a key role in the Blue Revolution at a global level, European carp aquaculture has stagnated over the past 25 years without achieving any productivity gains. The objective of this study was to identify the factors and mechanisms constraining production and productivity growth in pond-based carp farming in Hungary, as the country is a good representative of the EU pond-based farming sector. By using data from 44 carp farms, different specifications of the Cobb-Douglas production function were parameterized to investigate the determinants of yields and to assess the extent of economies of scale. Descriptive statistics show that large differences exist in productivity between individual farms, meaning that it is hard to implement technical standards and to ensure repeatability in extensive carp farming technology. Econometric analysis demonstrates that economies of scale do not prevail in pond-based farming in Hungary, so a concentration of farms would not stimulate a growth in carp farming. This may explain the stagnation of carp aquaculture, as the only European aquaculture segments which can grow are those that can exploit economies of scale. Further analysis demonstrates that labour is an important factor of production, and a decreasing workforce may constrain the intensification process of production. On the other hand, mechanisation did not prove to be a significant contributing factor to yields, indicating that large investment in equipment has a limited role in carp farming.