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Social Acceptance of Aquaculture in Spain: An Instrument to Achieve Sustainability for Society

Aquaculture is a technique to produce food that is under debate, due to its possible consequences for altering the economy, traditional fishing included, or the environment, even with doubts about the health of consumers. This document studies its social acceptance from the point of view of carrying...

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Autores principales: Ruiz-Chico, José, Biedma-Ferrer, José M., Peña-Sánchez, Antonio R., Jiménez-García, Mercedes
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7558708/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32932940
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17186628
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author Ruiz-Chico, José
Biedma-Ferrer, José M.
Peña-Sánchez, Antonio R.
Jiménez-García, Mercedes
author_facet Ruiz-Chico, José
Biedma-Ferrer, José M.
Peña-Sánchez, Antonio R.
Jiménez-García, Mercedes
author_sort Ruiz-Chico, José
collection PubMed
description Aquaculture is a technique to produce food that is under debate, due to its possible consequences for altering the economy, traditional fishing included, or the environment, even with doubts about the health of consumers. This document studies its social acceptance from the point of view of carrying capacity. This term is defined as the level at which this activity begins to be disproportionate and poses important disadvantages for society. In this context, we conducted 803 surveys in six coastal provinces in Spain. The results show that the acceptance of these products is good, implying that aquaculture is far from reaching its saturation point in society. Additionally, the respondents gave a higher priority to socio-economic objectives than to environmental ones. We can conclude that the further development of this sector is advisable in these provinces. The general perception of aquaculture is better among men, and also among higher-income consumers. Informative activities should be organized to target these more hesitant groups. Production structures should be revised to overcome biases in the population about the idea that the food obtained from aquaculture harms the environment or is less natural or healthy. The possible abuse of feed and chemicals spreads this idea, and this could affect the taste and quality adversely.
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spelling pubmed-75587082020-10-26 Social Acceptance of Aquaculture in Spain: An Instrument to Achieve Sustainability for Society Ruiz-Chico, José Biedma-Ferrer, José M. Peña-Sánchez, Antonio R. Jiménez-García, Mercedes Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Aquaculture is a technique to produce food that is under debate, due to its possible consequences for altering the economy, traditional fishing included, or the environment, even with doubts about the health of consumers. This document studies its social acceptance from the point of view of carrying capacity. This term is defined as the level at which this activity begins to be disproportionate and poses important disadvantages for society. In this context, we conducted 803 surveys in six coastal provinces in Spain. The results show that the acceptance of these products is good, implying that aquaculture is far from reaching its saturation point in society. Additionally, the respondents gave a higher priority to socio-economic objectives than to environmental ones. We can conclude that the further development of this sector is advisable in these provinces. The general perception of aquaculture is better among men, and also among higher-income consumers. Informative activities should be organized to target these more hesitant groups. Production structures should be revised to overcome biases in the population about the idea that the food obtained from aquaculture harms the environment or is less natural or healthy. The possible abuse of feed and chemicals spreads this idea, and this could affect the taste and quality adversely. MDPI 2020-09-11 2020-09 /pmc/articles/PMC7558708/ /pubmed/32932940 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17186628 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Ruiz-Chico, José
Biedma-Ferrer, José M.
Peña-Sánchez, Antonio R.
Jiménez-García, Mercedes
Social Acceptance of Aquaculture in Spain: An Instrument to Achieve Sustainability for Society
title Social Acceptance of Aquaculture in Spain: An Instrument to Achieve Sustainability for Society
title_full Social Acceptance of Aquaculture in Spain: An Instrument to Achieve Sustainability for Society
title_fullStr Social Acceptance of Aquaculture in Spain: An Instrument to Achieve Sustainability for Society
title_full_unstemmed Social Acceptance of Aquaculture in Spain: An Instrument to Achieve Sustainability for Society
title_short Social Acceptance of Aquaculture in Spain: An Instrument to Achieve Sustainability for Society
title_sort social acceptance of aquaculture in spain: an instrument to achieve sustainability for society
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7558708/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32932940
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17186628
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