Seafood : the new farmers

Global production of fish and seafood has quadrupled over the past 50 years, half due to the increase in world population, and half due to the fact that the average person now eats almost twice as much seafood as half a century ago.

This has increased pressure on fish stocks across the world. Globally, the share of fish stocks which are overexploited - meaning we catch them faster than they can reproduce to sustain population levels - has more than doubled since the 1980s and this means that current levels of wild fish catch are unsustainable.

One innovation has helped to alleviate some of the pressure on wild fish catch: aquqculture, the practice of fish and seafood farming. The distinction between farmed fish and wild catch is similar to the difference between raising livestock rather than hunting wild animals.

In the 1960s, aquaculture was relatively niche, with an output of a few million tonnes per year. Particularly since the late 1980s, annual production has increased rapidly. In 1990 the world produced only 17 million tonnes. It now produces over 100 million tonnes.

Our world in data / Seafood Production, provides users with very detailed facts and figures on sea food production.

At a global level, aquaculture production has now surpassed wild catch. It has absorbed almost all of the growth in global demand in recent decades and will continue to playa critical role in protecting wild fish populations as demand for seafood continues to rise.

Proportions are very different when you look at the European Union level, which leaves an enormous potential of development to reconcile in Europe food independence, environmental concern, and economic development of our coastal systems.