Despite fluctuations in supply and demand, caused by the changing state of fisheries resources, the economic climate and environmental conditions, fisheries and aquaculture remain very important as a source of food, employment and revenue in many countries and communities.
Reported global capture fisheries and aquaculture production contracted from a figure of 122 million tonnes in 1997 to 117 million tonnes in 1998. This was mainly owing to the effects of the climate anomaly, El Niño, on some major marine capture fisheries (Figure 1, p. 4 and Table 1). However, production recovered in 1999, for which the preliminary estimate is about 125 million tonnes. The production increase of 20 million tonnes over the last decade was mainly due to aquaculture, as capture fisheries production remained relatively stable.
For the two decades following 1950, world marine and inland capture fisheries production increased on average by as much as 6 percent per year, trebling from 18 million tonnes in 1950 to 56 million tonnes in 1969. During the 1970s and 1980s, the average rate of increase declined to 2 percent per year, falling to almost zero in the 1990s. This levelling off of the total catch follows the general trend of most of the world's fishing areas, which have apparently reached their maximum potential for capture fisheries production, with the majority of stocks being fully exploited. It is therefore very unlikely that substantial increases in total catch will be obtained. In contrast, growth in aquaculture production has shown the opposite tendency. Starting from an insignificant total production, inland and marine aquaculture production grew by about 5 percent per year between 1950 and 1969 and by about 8 percent per year during the 1970s and 1980s, and it has increased further to 10 percent per year since 1990.
The global patterns of fish production owe much to the activities of China, which reports production in weight that accounts for 32 percent of the world total. Other major producer countries are Japan, India, the United States, the Russian Federation and Indonesia.
When China is excluded, however, the production of fish used as food for humans has remained relatively stable (Figure 2), but the production of fish destined for animal feed has decreased in recent years - the decline registered in 1998 was largely due to the El Niño effect, particularly on the anchoveta fishery which supplies a significant proportion of the fish used for fishmeal and fish oil. However, the event had much less impact on the supply of fish for food, which declined only slightly to 11.8 kg per capita. Outside China, the world's population has been increasing more quickly than total fish production and the per capita fish supply has declined since the mid-1980s.
In contrast, China has reported increases in fish production and shows little sign of slowing growth (Figure 3). Most of the production is used domestically and for human consumption, but there has also been a recent expansion in the production of feed. There has been a major growth of aquaculture, which now dominates China's production, although capture fisheries have also seen increases. Per capita fish supply, based on reported production, has increased dramatically over the last 20 years, indicating the growing importance of fish as food. This increased supply has been helped by China's slowing population growth.
Employment in the primary capture fisheries and aquaculture production sectors in 1998 is estimated to have been about 36 million people, comprising about 15 million full-time, 13 million part-time and 8 million occasional workers. For the first time, there is an indication that growth in employment in the primary sectors of fisheries and aquaculture has ceased (Figure 4). Employment in inland and marine aquaculture has been increasing, and is now estimated to account for about 25 percent of the total. Marine capture fisheries account for about 60 percent and inland capture fisheries for the remaining 15 percent.
