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The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in a recent report has expressed concerns that the aquaculture industry may struggle to meet future world demand for fish as a rising global population consumes more and more fish and small farmers in poor countries face difficulties in exporting their produce.

The report says that the need for more fish from aquaculture has been heightened, because so-called traditional capture fisheries from the world’s seas, lakes and rivers have reached a plateau in terms of production and the aquaculture sector will need to produce 80.5 million tons per year just to maintain current per capita fish consumption

The report states that “The question remains whether the aquaculture sector can grow fast enough to sustain projected demand for fish while ensuring consumer protection, maintain environmental integrity and achieving social responsibility”

Surprisingly, the rapid growth of the aquaculture sector is suggested to be slowing, with previous yearly growth rates of over 10 per cent from 1985 to 1995 declining to 7 per cent in the following decade.

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The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation commissioned a Group of Experts on the Scientific Aspects of Marine Environmental Protection (GESAMP) to develop a framework for the assessment and communication of environmental risks which may be associated with coastal aquaculture. Their report was recently released and is well worth a look.

The rationale behind the report is simple - to demonstrate that a consideration of the social, economic and environmental dimensions of coastal aquaculture must be developed, presented and communicated in a way that acknowledges the extent and limits of our ability to predict the consequence of development.

The report includes six case studies that describe how the GESAMP framework has been deployed in coastal aquaculture projects around the world, involving species ranging from finfish to molluscs and shrimp. The type of effects studied includes effects on carrying capacity, phytoplankton, kelp, benthic fauna, the genome of wild fishes and salinisation of soils.

The full report is available here and .pdfs of each chapter are available here

The value of world exports of fish and fish products grew 9.5 percent in 2006 to US$86 billion and nearly 7 percent in 2007 to US$92 billion, according to the paper, presented to 60+ countries attending the 11th session of FAO’s Sub-Committee on Fish Trade (Bremen, Germany 2-6 June 2008).

The proportion of world fish production (145 million tonnes) that is traded internationally now represents 38 percent of the total, or 55 million tonnes, the paper noted.

Developing countries have confirmed their fundamental importance as suppliers to world markets, it added, accounting for 50 percent of all fish exports. Their net export revenues from this trade have reached a record high of US$25 billion.

Imports are mostly by developed countries, now responsible for 80 percent of all imports in value terms (US$96 billion).

More details available here.

An FAO fact sheet on the global Ffsh trade may be accessed here.