Fuelled by aquaculture, fish consumption reaches all time high: FAO

The world is eating more fish than ever and contrary to popular notions, fish farming and not marine wild catch is meeting the global demands, the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization's (FAO)  State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2016 report has revealed. FAO brings out this report every two years. It said that India is one of 35 countries that produced more farmed than wild-caught fish in 2014. According to the report, almost 90 per cent of aquaculture production takes place in Asia, most of it in the tropical and subtropical belts.

In the exhaustive report, encapsulating the trends of world fishing production, it has come to light that diversified production has increased the average per capita availability to a new high of more than 20kg. "World per capita apparent fish consumption increased from an average of 9.9 kg in the 1960s to 14.4 kg in the 1990s and 19.7 kg in 2013, with preliminary estimates for 2015 indicating further growth, exceeding 20 kg," the report said.

Globally, total capture fishery production in 2014 was 93.4 million tonnes, of which 81.5 million tonnes from marine waters and 11.9 million tonnes from inland waters. In 2014, there were an estimated 4.6 million fishing vessels with Asia alone having 3.5 million of them and 64 per cent of global vessels were engine-powered.

While the consumption has reached a new height, marine wild fish stocks are being overfished that will soon make it unsustainable while fish farming will be exposed to the dangers of climate change such as droughts. "Based on FAO's analysis of assessed commercial fish stocks, the share of fish stocks within biologically sustainable levels decreased from 90 percent in 1974 to 68.6 percent in 2013. Thus, 31.4 percent of fish stocks were estimated as fished at a biologically unsustainable level and therefore overfished," the report noted.

Closer home, the signs of depleting marine resources are clear and is also indicated by the long durations of fishing trips that mechanized trawlers undertake. The Southwest Indian Ocean Fisheries Commission started stock assessment in 2010 for major species in its area of competence based on best available data and information. Overall, 68 percent of fish stocks were estimated to be fully fished or underfished, and 32 percent fished at unsustainable levels.

These findings are line with the recent studies of the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute that have recorded a major slump in the sardine catch off southwest Arabian Sea. The study found that irregular breeding, climate anamolies triggered by El Nino and excessive capturing of juveniles hit Kerala's fisheries sector with a loss of Rs150 crore.

Globally too similar trends were noted by the FAO report in the Mediterranean and Black Sea. It said, "catches have dropped by one-third since 2007, mainly attributable to reduced landings of small pelagics such as anchovy and sardine but with most species groups also affected."