How animal welfare policy applies to aquaculture globally, the significant gaps that remain, and the organizations driving change.
Aquaculture welfare policy globally lags dramatically behind the scale of the sector. While terrestrial farm animal welfare has decades of legal development, farmed fish and crustacean welfare remains largely unregulated. Most countries have no specific legal welfare requirements for farmed fish. This regulatory vacuum means that welfare is entirely dependent on voluntary certification and buyer standards - creating a fragmented, inconsistent picture where fish welfare is excellent in some systems and virtually nonexistent in others. Building a regulatory framework that applies universal minimum standards across aquaculture is the sector's most significant welfare policy challenge.