🐟 Fishing series: From the fishing rod to ultra-productive fish farms

The peruvian “Anchoveta”, the most heavily exploited fish in world history

As average consumers, we are well aware that fishing does not limit itself to benevolent fisherwomen/men equipped with fishing rods. We know that fishing is more than often carried out by large ships equipped with gigantic nets which allow fish to be scooped out of the water by the ton. However, it is interesting to notice that the reality of the fishing industry is far form being widely known and that fishing does not necessarily mean “catching fish”.

This article aims to decribe the current state of world fishing.

The fishing industry is divided in 2 categories:

File:2016-state fisheries.png

Reference: FAO 2016 numbers

🎣  CAPTURE FISHERY: 53% of the industry
🚜  AQUACULTURE, also known as “fish farms”: 47% of the industry

When comparing these 2 percentages, it is quite astonishing to notice that the act of “catching fish”, aka “capture fishery” actually only represents half of the industry. The other half is organized around “fish farms”, a technic known as Aquaculture.

Let us also note that the value of capture fishery is said to have reached $130 billion in 2016, while aquaculture was estimated at $232 billion. This proves how profitable this quite “unknown” practice is and explains why it is considered to be the fastest growing sector of the food industry (around 6% growth per year). One reason to explain the lack of awareness in the western world towards the scale of Aquaculture production is the fact that Asia represents nearly 90% of the industry, with China alone producing 61.5%. 49% of China’s aquaculture production will then be exported to neighbouring Asian countries, Americas and, at a smaller scale, Europe.
Other large producers include: India (7%), Indonesia (6%), Viet Nam (4.5%), Egypt (1.7%) and Norway (1.7%).

How to explain the exponential growth of the sector? Appart from being extremely productive and practical, what Aquaculture allows is to make use of land where the conditions of the soil and the chemical properties of the water make the land inhospitable for conventional food grain crops or pasture. This applies to, either polluted, over-farmed or desertic terrains. It also allows countries with limited access to the sea to produce fish at a large scale.

So what is Aquaculture and “fish farming”?

Farming on land, a fish farm in Egypt

File:Marine Fish farm.png

Farming on water in Luoyuan Bay, China. Underneath the water is a vast network of lines, cages, and nets for the growth of various seafood species.

Click on image for more detailed zoom

Aquaculture, as its name entails, involves the cultivation of fish (such as carp, salmon, trout, etc…), crustaceans (such as shrimps or crabs), mollusks (such as oysters or mussels) and aquatics plants in a constrained environment.

The cultivation of these species is pursued either in a natural settings such as seas or lakes for instance, or in human-built pools which can either be dug in the ground or built and set on land.

Production of the aquaculture sector

• Farmed fish: 80.0 million tonnes (73%)
• Aquatic plants: 30.1 million tonnes (27%)

Production of farmed fish

• 🐟  Fish: 54.1 million tons (69%)
• 🍤  Mollusks: 17.1 million tons (22%)
• 🐚  Crustaceans: 7.9 million tons (10%)

Most farmed species

🐟  Fish

• Carp (36% of the market)
• Tilapia
• Salmon
• Trout

🐚  Crustaceans

• Shrimp (53% of the market)
• Crawfish
• Crab

🍤  Molluscs

• Oysters (28% of the market)
• Clams (25% of the market)
• Scallops
• Mussels

Share of farmed-fish production compared to capture fishery

• 🐡  Carps: (89.9%) of worldwide production comes from fish farms
• 🐟  Catfish: (50.1%)
• 🐟  Tilapias: (47.1%)
• 🐟  Salmon and trout: (72.8%)
• 🐚  Mollusks: (39.1%)
• 🦀  Crabs and Lobster: (49.4%)
• 🍤  Shrimps and prawns: (33.9%)
• 🌾  Seaweed: (99.5%)

What type of fish-farms?

Fish farms can fall into 3 categories:

Extensive farming:
These farms make use of large natural ponds. Their production relies on natural cycles, although the fish may be fed additionaly by locally available crop wastes. Very little or no processed feed is used.

Semi-intensive farming:
These farms are often placed on large lakes and inland-waters but also on coastlines. In these systems, natural productivity is augmented with fertilizers and industrially produced feeds. The majority of Asian finfish aquaculture is produced thanks to these systems.

Intensive farming:
Intensive farming requires human-built ponds, often placed on land, and maintained thanks to electric pumping. The fish are fed with industrially produced pellet feeds.

So what is Capture fishery?

Close to 90% of the world's capture fishery come from oceans and seas, as opposed to inland waters. Most marine fisheries are based near the coast. This is not only because harvesting from relatively shallow waters is easier than in the open ocean, but also because fish are much more abundant near the coastal shelf, due to the abundance of nutrients available there from coastal upwelling and land runoff. But productive wild fisheries also exist in open oceans.

Production of the capture fishery sector

• Total production: 90.9 million tonnes

Most caught fish 🐟 species

• Alaska pollock
• Anchovetas
• Skipjack tuna
• Sardines
• Mackerel
• Hering
• Yellowfin tuna
• Atlantic cod

To note: In comparaison to the Aquaculture sector, the diversity of species resulting from Capture fishing is much larger. The first reason being that eventhough specific marine areas can concentrate a large percentage of a particular species, a fishing boat will, however, hardly be able select exactly which species will end up in its net. This explains why fishing stalls offer a much larger variety of species than that of the butcher's. The second being that the choice of species farmed in Aquaculture depends on offer and demand, whereas capture Fishery relies only of geography.

Regulations to prevent over-fishing as well as ecological variations however also constantly redefine the landscape of capture Fishery. The production of Anchovetas in Peru, for instance, was 3 times more developed than any other species before 2014. Due to the impact of Hurricane El Niño as well as strong regulations, the production was divided by 3 in 3 years, putting Anchovetas on the second step of the podium in 2016.

Related documents

• Share of Aquaculture.png

  “Share of Aquaculture”