World Fish
Consumption 150m/t by 2030
Average world consumption of
fish per person could grow from 16 kg a year in 1997 to 19-20 kg by 2030,
raising total food use of fish to 150-160 million tonnes. The yearly
sustainable yield of marine capture fisheries is estimated at no more than
100 million tonnes. "The bulk of the increase in supply therefore will
have to come from aquaculture," says a new report from FAO's Global
Perspective Studies Unit. The report, "Agriculture:
Towards 2015/30", forecasts global trends in food, nutrition and
agriculture over the next 30 years.
Globally, fish provide about 16 percent of the animal protein consumed by
humans, Aquaculture expanded by 10 percent per year during the 1990s. The
share of aquaculture in world fish production doubled over the decade,
reaching 26 percent in 1999.
Over the next three decades, the world's fisheries will meet demand by
continuing the same shift from fish capture to fish cultivation that gained
momentum in the 1990s.
The share of capture fisheries in world production will continue to decline.
The maximum sustainable marine production has been estimated at around 100
million tonnes a year. However, this is higher than the annual catches of 80
to 85 million tonnes achieved during the 1990s, and assumes that large
quantities of hitherto underexploited aquatic resources will be used,
including krill, mesopelagic fish and oceanic squids. As in the 1990s, most
of the shortfall will be made up by aquaculture, which will probably
continue to grow at rates of 5 to 7 percent a year, at least until 2015.
Aquaculture species will be improved. Traditional breeding, chromosome
manipulation and hybridization have already made significant contributions.
In future the use of new technologies, such as genetic modification, can be
expected. Already, a gene that codes for an anti-freeze protein in the
Arctic flounder has been transferred to Atlantic salmon to increase its
tolerance of cold waters. Currently, however, no commercial aquaculture
producer is marketing such transgenic species for human consumption. If this
field is to progress, public concerns about GM organisms will need to be
addressed through risk assessments and the development of policy guidelines
for responsible use.
Additional species will be domesticated for aquaculture. For halibut, cod
and tuna, which have been fished in high volumes in capture fisheries,
aquaculture production could eventually be high. If commercially viable
technology is developed soon, by 2015 the cultured production of cod could
reach 1 to 2 million tonnes per year.
Environmental concerns will probably shift the focus of aquaculture away
from coastal zones into more intensive inland systems. Marine ranching will
also expand, though its long-term future will depend on solutions to the
problems of ownership surrounding released animals. At present, only Japan
is engaged in sea ranching on a large scale.
So far, aquaculture has been heavily concentrated in Asia, which provided 89
percent of world production in 1999. A growing diversity of species is now
cultured. The overall increase in fish production has been paralleled by a
steady growth in consumption. Fish now account for an average of 30 percent
of the animal protein consumed in Asia, approximately 20 percent in Africa
and around 10 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean. By 1999 global
average intake of fish, crustaceans and molluscs reached 16.3 kg per person,
an increase of more than 70 percent over the 1961-63 level.
Nearly 40 percent of all fish production is now internationally traded. As a
result, fisheries are increasingly seen as a powerful means of generating
hard currency. Developing countries' gross earnings from fish exports have
grown rapidly, from US$5.2 billion in 1985 to US$15.6 billion in 1999.
Main findings of the FAO Report http://www.fao.org/english/newsroom/news/2002/7833-en.html
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