This article was featured in Eurofish Magazine 6 2025.
The German aquaculture sector struggles to attract young people with the interest and training to become fish farmers. Ways to counter this exist, but they demand a concerted long-term approach.
Like many other European countries, discussions about a shortage of skilled labour have become a staple of German politics. Certain professions affected by this are often highlighted, with their societal importance named as a key reason why this decline in skilled workers is threatening existing industries and ways of living. One profession rarely mentioned or discussed publicly, its slow decline thus invisible, is the traditional fish farmer. With one of the lowest per capita employment levels in the sector across the EU, Germany is already characterised by a smallscale and fragmented aquaculture sector. A generational change is approaching, and concerns are mounting that generations of smallscale producers will retire without anyone to take over their businesses.
The German education system
Germany has an educational system producing internationally renowned and qualified personnel. It offers both vocational training and avenues in higher education. The vocational training to become a fish farmer is a dual system of practice and theory covering the upkeep and management of aquaculture facilities, as well as the proper handling and understanding of aquatic organisms and ecosystems. While this comprehensive approach to producing allround personnel is functional, it leaves limited room for specialisation and makes it harder to incorporate new innovations and technologies emerging in the industry. Nevertheless, the job profile increasingly demands an ever-broader knowledge of control and regulation technology, process engineering, digitisation, marketing and communication, and other relevant fields. Choosing this training still offers a nearguarantee of employment after successful completion, with new graduates often going abroad. Yet the numbers have been declining steadily in recent years: between 2013 and 2023, the number of people in vocational training to become a fish farmer decreased by around 40%, and between 2020 and 2023 alone there was a further decline of about 29%.
Higher education paints a similar picture, defined not only by a decline in student numbers, but also by a reduction in the number of programmes on offer. While programmes specifically for aquaculture were scarce in general, the number dropped from three master’s programmes in 2020 to only one in 2025. There are several undergraduate programmes offering modules in aquaculture, or degrees in fisheries sciences, but with no direct pipeline into the aquaculture sector. This is not a problem unique to aquaculture, but one faced by specialised fields in general. Dr Adrian BischoffLang, a researcher at the University of Rostock (home to the only remaining master’s degree in aquaculture), explains this as competition to attract as many students as possible to programmes. Universities must ask themselves whether “they really want to offer specialised programmes which attract only a small number of students when attracting as many students as possible is the financially responsible direction”. A decrease in enrolment certainly does not help the university’s graduate programme in aquaculture, which has averaged around 55% fewer students per year in 2020-2025 than in 2012-2019.
It is, however, not just for lack of educational avenues that young professionals are missing in the aquaculture sector. With the number of companies in the sector at an all-time low—around 1,950 companies in 2024 down from 2,262 in 2020—the underlying trends seem only to intensify. Despite this development, the number of employees in the sector was relatively stable between 2015 and 2023, with around 2,100 employees on average over the nine years. This can be explained by the stratification of the German aquaculture sector into higher and lower volume farms. Although they made up just 21% of all aquaculture companies in 2023, producers with output of over 5,000 kg of fish per year accounted for 91% of farmed fish. Meanwhile, the number of people working in the sector without being officially employed is assumed to be around 3,000, consisting mainly of family members and operations managers. While larger aquaculture companies depend less on this informal workforce, most small-scale farms do and are thus especially exposed to an ageing demographic while lacking young professionals. The industry is stable enough to facilitate continued production but lacks the necessary influx of young and eager professionals to allow meaningful growth and innovation.
Waiting for change
Policymakers are aware of these issues. At the EU level, aquaculture has long been recognised as lagging behind global growth, with Germany particularly affected. The reformed Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) explicitly integrates aquaculture and, together with the European Commission’s Strategic Guidelines, sets the orientation for European aquaculture. Under Article 34 of the CFP, Member States must adopt National Strategic Plans for Aquaculture; Germany’s National Strategy Plan Aquaculture (NASTAQ 2021–2030) is the national response. Yet earlier European Parliament initiatives to promote aquaculture saw limited implementation in Germany. Stakeholders cited in NASTAQ 2021–2030 similarly criticise that NASTAQ 2014 already identified core problems in detail and proposed potent solutions, yet the necessary measures were not implemented. In essence, many of the challenges the industry faces must either be addressed holistically, or risk being addressed inadequately.
A multitude of factors influences the weak standing of the profession. Generally, aquaculture does not enjoy the best image with German consumers, which is compounded by limited lobbying by the industry. There is consequently a lack of awareness, both politically and socially, of the challenges faced and the funding and facilitation required by the industry. Given that imports account for 90% of German fish consumption, with salmon, Alaska pollock, and tuna the most popular species, consumers are not innately connected to freshwater aquaculture products. This reflects a broader trend of consumer alienation from the circumstances under which agricultural goods are farmed, harvested, processed, and ultimately offered by wholesalers. This trend is particularly pronounced in the fishery and aquaculture sectors. Another challenge is the poor economic sustainability of many farms, increasing the risks connected with business succession. With high labour and production costs, substantial bureaucracy, and the need for expensive investments in many cases, the threshold to take over or establish a new aquaculture business is often extremely high. Although educational opportunities often lead to successful employment, salaries tend to be at the lower end, especially compared to the physical and temporal intensity of the work. With all this in mind, what are possible measures to address the challenges presented?
Measures to attract and retain talent
Dr BischoffLang emphasises the importance of raising awareness about the context of agricultural and aquaculture production. This includes educating children about the ingredients in fish sticks and chicken nuggets but also improving the image of primary producers and showcasing what constitutes the everyday working life of a (fish) farmer. This goes hand in hand with efforts to promote an image of aquaculture that highlights its social, ecological, and economic importance. Avenues such as communityled local development funding, which brings together relevant local actors, organisations, and citizens, can facilitate interaction and reciprocal understanding, and ultimately raise awareness for the industry. In addition to information campaigns and advertising, these Fisheries Local Action Groups (FLAGs) are effective ways of integrating aquaculture stakeholders into local development processes and regional value chains.
Financial incentives and grants are equally important, both to attract young professionals and to support companies in making investments or scaling their business models. A positive example is the state of Schleswig-Holstein, which in 2025 established a new subsidy for the vocational training programme in fish farming, providing a total of €15,000 in funding for the three-year training programme. The fact that this programme is co-funded by the European Maritime, Fisheries and Aquaculture Fund (EMFAF) showcases that there are financial tools waiting to be utilised. At the same time, no amount of funding can fully compensate for overwhelming bureaucratic demands on aquaculture companies. Due to the federal structure of German aquaculture and fishery regulations, comprehensive change is often halted before it can even be conceived. So, while NASTAQ 2021–2030 seeks to address many challenges by offering solutions like the ones mentioned above, the overarching structural issues must likewise be addressed. If Germany couples focused funding with lighter bureaucracy and stronger outreach, the next generation of fish farmers will have both the reason and the means to take the helm.
Justus M. Dohmen, justus@eurofish.dk
