The 1970s and 1980s marked the pioneering era of hatchery-based aquaculture for high-value finfish and crustaceans, including salmon, Japanese seabream, European sea bass and sea bream, and penaeid shrimp. A defining breakthrough of this period was the recognition of the critical role of live feeds, particularly Artemia, in larval rearing and early survival, laying the biological foundation for modern aquaculture.

By the late 1980s and 1990s, rapid technological progress and investment drove the global expansion of commercial hatcheries and grow-out systems, including cages and ponds. As production scaled up, the sector increasingly differentiated into two largely independent businesses—hatchery and grow-out operations. This structural separation, while economically efficient, placed growing pressure on hatcheries to deliver ever-cheaper juveniles, often at the expense of robustness, genetic quality, and long-term performance—an issue whose consequences have only been fully recognized in recent years.

Parallel to this, the intensification of monoculture production systems became the dominant model for efficiency and scale. However, intensification without adequate ecological safeguards led to rising disease incidence, biosecurity failures, and increased reliance on therapeutic interventions. In many regions, production systems began to approach or exceed ecological carrying capacities, resulting in chronic stress, reduced resilience, and recurring disease outbreaks.

Entering the last decade, these challenges have driven a paradigm shift toward sustainable intensification as the guiding principle for future growth. This includes advances in selective breeding and genetics, reduced dependence on fishmeal and fish oil through alternative feeds, improved biosecurity and health management, better control of microbial communities, and the application of digital, biotechnological, and precision-farming tools.