More than half of the world’s seafood production for human consumption will originate from aquaculture by 2012, according to a new report from the Food and Agriculture Organization.
Titled “World Aquaculture 2010” and released on Wednesday, the report forecasted that global aquaculture production would reach 55.1 million metric tons in 2009 and 147 million metric tons in 2010.
That would be up from 52.5 million metric tons in 2008, representing 45.6 percent of the world’s seafood production for human consumption. The figures for 2008 are official (as reported in the “The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2010” in January), while the numbers for 2009 and 2010 are only estimates.
Asia-Pacific still dominates the industry. In 2008, the region accounted for 89.1 percent of global aquaculture production, with China alone contributing 62.3 percent, or 32.7 million metric tons. Of the 15 leading aquaculture-producing countries, 11 are in the Asia-Pacific region. Trailing China is India at 3.5 million metric tons, followed by Vietnam (2.5 million), Indonesia (1.7 million), Thailand (1.2 million), Bangladesh (1 million), Norway (844,000), Chile (843,000), the Philippines (741,000) and Japan (732,000).
Aquaculture is the world’s fastest-growing source of animal protein.
