Marine Biological Resources

From the laboratory to mass production on the Mediterranean coast

Fishing and marine species farming in the Mediterranean Sea is an ancestral history that has continuously evolved. Today, this evolution is initiated by all of the stakeholders involved in fishing, aquaculture and biotechnology with a capacity for shared initiative that allows the pooling of knowledge, resources, and interests necessary to build innovative collaborative projects. In each of these fields, the Mediterranean coast boasts strong assets with stakeholders (SMEs, start-ups, family businesses, large national or international groups, research institutes, universities, representative organisations, federations, and managers and public policy bearers) who are located at all levels between fundamental research and operational production systems. One or more activities are at the cutting edge, such as research and the production of fish fry for aquaculture.

Market potential: feeding the planet

The sea is rich with animal, plant, and bacterial biological resources, accessible either by exploiting these species in their natural habitat or by cultivating them in natural or controlled environments. These two approaches mainly aim to produce food proteins, through fishing and aquaculture and have diversified over the past thirty years with blue biotechnology (animal feed, bioenergy, health, cosmetics, nutraceuticals, etc.). Two orientations are developing. One towards the localisation of local fresh produce consumption markets and the other towards marketplaces located throughout France, Europe, or the planet for products with strong economic potential.

Today, marine organic production flows and is redistributed on all continents. The Pôle Mer Méditerranée cluster aims to participate in the development of projects on the Mediterranean coast to improve local production systems and also produce exportable knowledge and know-how.

Innovation, the key to a sustainable future

The action of the Pôle Mer Méditerranée cluster concerns the emergence of solutions which are able to lift scientific, technical, and economic barriers:

• Sustainable fisheries: bring technological innovations relating to the ship, crew safety with more suitable workstations, propulsion and energy saving, and fishing gear reducing by-catches;
• Sustainable aquaculture: setting the example by working on both the research aspect by  identifying new food sources, the health and safety of production, the domestication of more efficient new species, with faster growth... on the environmental aspect with the reduction of impacts including genetic, input, waste, and energy management, and finally  on the societal acceptability aspect of aquaculture;
• Blue biotechnology: innovation concerns the entire value chain, from cultivation / production to harvesting and processing for synthesis.

Adapting sectors

These areas of activity are organised within a national and European framework, such as the Common Fisheries Policy initiated in 1983, which is dynamic. The skills of the facade are mobilized to imagine and implement new measures to maintain or develop these sectors. The cluster gives priority to supporting actions that concern, for example:

• Fisheries: processing and marketing of fishery products, ship design and maintenance, fishing gear and instrumentation, and associated services.
• Aquaculture: formulated feeds, fish and shellfish hatcheries, grow-out and associated services.
• Biotechnologies: new bio-resources for humans and to contribute to the energy and ecological transition (remediation, bioremediation, bio-sourced materials).