Demand for Organic Salmon in the European Union

This paper provides an analysis of the market potential for organic salmon, primarily in the European Union. There has been a substantial growth in the demand for organic food products in industrialised countries in the course of the past decade. Legislation for organic production is now being extended to aquaculture, and limited quantities of certified organic salmon have been marketed in the European Union. We examine the experience gained in other organic food markets, and draw some conclusions from these markets with relevance to salmon. Organic salmon fills a dietary need among organic consumers, but at the same time it has some characteristics which may present obstacles to successful marketing. We analysed price premiums for organic salmon compared to conventional salmon. Positive price premiums were found, but it is hard to predict how they will evolve when the supply of organic salmon is expanded. Experience from other organic foods that are supplied in large volumes suggests that it may be possible to obtain price premiums even with substantially higher production

The fishery performance indicators: a management tool for triple bottom line outcomes

Pursuit of the triple bottom line of economic, community and ecological sustainability has increased the complexity of fishery management; fisheries assessments require new types of data and analysis to guide science-based policy in addition to traditional biological information and modeling. We introduce the Fishery Performance Indicators (FPIs), a broadly applicable and flexible tool for assessing performance in individual fisheries, and for establishing cross-sectional links between enabling conditions, management strategies and triple bottom line outcomes. Conceptually separating measures of performance, the FPIs use 68 individual outcome metrics--coded on a 1 to 5 scale based on expert assessment to facilitate application to data poor fisheries and sectors--that can be partitioned into sector-based or triple-bottom-line sustainability-based interpretative indicators. Variation among outcomes is explained with 54 similarly structured metrics of inputs, management approaches and enabling conditions. Using 61 initial fishery case studies drawn from industrial and developing countries around the world, we demonstrate the inferential importance of tracking economic and community outcomes, in addition to resource status.James L. Anderson ... Tim Ward ... et al

Industry agglomeration, sub-national institutions and the profitability of foreign subsidiaries

This study investigates the impact of agglomeration and its interaction with subnational institutions on the profitability of multinational enterprises (MNEs) subsidiaries operating in an emerging economy. We argue that in an emerging economy like China, competition in product and factor markets is more intense between foreign firms than between foreign and domestic firms owing to market segmentation. Consequently, agglomerating with other foreign firms has negative impact on the profitability of foreign subsidiaries. In contrast, foreign firms agglomerating with domestic firms may reap gains owing to less competition and improved access to local resources and knowledge. We find that these effects are more pronounced to domestic-market-oriented foreign firms. Furthermore, sub-national institutions moderate the above relationships. Our arguments are supported by the empirical analysis based on a comprehensive dataset of foreign firms operating in China over the period of 1999-2005

Agglomeration externalities, productivity, and technical inefficiency

Agglomeration externalities can have positive effects on both the production possibility frontier and technical inefficiency of firms. Increased levels of localized knowledge spillovers and substitution of internal inputs with external inputs may lead to fewer errors in decision-making and execution of production tasks, thus causing firms to become technically more efficient relative to the production frontier. When we estimate a stochastic frontier production model on a large panel of salmon aquaculture farms, we find econometric support for positive agglomeration externalities on both the production frontier and technical inefficiency

Innovations and Productivity Performance in Salmon Aquaculture

Part 3: StrategyInternational audienceSince the 1980s a large number of innovations have radically transformed the production process in salmon aquaculture. Increased degree of control with the production process, increased scale of plants, and more intensive use of farm locations are some of the consequences. Until the mid 1990s the industry also experienced rapid productivity growth leading to production costs to be reduced to 1/3 of their initial levels in Norwegian salmon aquaculture. But thereafter productivity has been stagnant. This paper analyses the innovation process and productivity growth in the Norwegian salmon industry, and discusses the challenges for the future