Following up on our radio show, "Episode 345: Fisheries as a Strategic Maritime Resource"



UN FAO report - The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2016:
Contributing to food security and nutrition for all:

Fisheries and aquaculture remain important sources of food, nutrition, income and livelihoods for hundreds of millions of people around the world. World per capita fish supply reached a new record high of 20 kg in 2014, thanks to vigorous growth in aquaculture, which now provides half of all fish for human consumption, and to a slight improvement in the state of certain fish stocks due to improved fisheries management. Moreover, fish continues to be one of the most-traded food commodities worldwide with more than half of fish exports by value originating in developing countries. Recent reports by high-level experts, international organizations, industry and civil society representatives all highlight the tremendous potential of the oceans and inland waters now, and even more so in the future, to contribute significantly to food security and adequate nutrition for a global population expected to reach 9.7 billion by 2050.

Yes, it's 204 pages of pdf, but well worth looking through.

Lots of good info:

The state of the world’s marine fish stocks has not improved overall, despite notable progress in some areas. 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. . .

China is the world's largest consumer of fish. On the other had, it is also the leader in aquaculture, in 2011 it produced 61.6% the world total in aquaculture. The U.S. in the same year produced 0.8%. (FAO numbers)

The U.S. imports 90+% (in value) of its seafood, of which about 1/2 is from aquaculture (mainly shrimp). Interestingly,

". . . NOAA Fisheries data shows that a significant portion of this imported seafood is caught by American fishermen, exported overseas for processing, and then imported back to the U.S."

The 2014 NOAA report "Fisheries of the United States" can be found here. This report discusses

aquaculture:

In 2013, estimated freshwater plus marine U.S. aquaculture production was 653 million pounds with a value of $1.38 billion, an increase of 59 million pounds (10%) in volume and 145 million (12%) in value from 2012. Atlantic salmon was the leading species for marine finfish aquaculture, with 41.6 million pounds produced essentially unchanged from 2012. Atlantic Salmon produced was valued at $105 million (up 36%). Oysters have the highest volume for marine shellfish production. (35 million pounds, up 1%) The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that nearly half of the world’s consumption of seafood comes from aquaculture. Globally, Asia is the leading continent for aquaculture production volume with 89 percent of the global total of 70.2 million metric tons. The top five producing countries are in Asia: China, with 62 percent of the global total; India, 6 percent; Indonesia, 5 percent; Viet Nam, 5 percent; and Bangladesh 3 percent. The United States ranks fourteenth in production.

Over 15 U.S. states are producing trout via aquaculture with the leader in that field being Idaho which produces about 75% if U.S. "farmed" trout according to the United States Trout Farming Association.

The U.S. needs to push for more aqualculture, both for the food production aspect and also for the jobs that such production can produce. It's also a national security issue in terms of safe-guarding our food supply.

Fish Stories Part 3: "Chinese Aquaculture"

One of the world leaders in aquaculture, China's system is reviewed in this piece, "An Overview of China's Aquaculture (pdf), prepared by a Dutch agency:

Currently China’s output from aquaculture is the largest in the world and accounts for about 67% of the world’s total production. Moreover, China is the only country in which aquaculture output exceeds wild capture output and where more than 90% of the domestic consumption of seafood is from aquaculture.
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In the period of the 11th 5 year plan, legislation on fishery rights got an important breakthrough. For the first time, it was clearly defined that the farmers’ right of culturing and fishing in waters and tidal area are protected by the law. Some relevant standards for fisheries such as standard of pollution free aquatic product, standard of waste water discharge in freshwater aquaculture have also been set up. Meanwhile, the supervision and testing system of residues of antibiotics and chemicals in aquatic products is improving.
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Nowadays, the main marine aquaculture species in China are shrimp, scallop, large yellow croaker, turbot, oyster, mussel, abalone, sea cucumber, sea urchin and clam. The major culture species have changed a lot in recent years. For example, farrer’ scallop and Penaeus Chinensis were two major culture species in China twenty years ago. However, with the occurrence of serious diseases and variety degeneration which caused high death rate, the two species vanished gradually.
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The main types of marine aquaculture include as follows: 1. land based culture. This type has been used as the major culture method of shrimp. Some marine crab like swimming crab and Samoan crab also are cultured in the ponds. 2. Offshore culture: Floating raft culture and cage culture are two main types. Floating raft culture normally is used to culture shellfish like scallop, oyster etc. Cage culture is relatively a new technology in China and is used to culture some high value fishes like sea bream, sea bass and big yellow croaker etc. Tidal flat culture: this culture method is used to culture the animals with weak moving ability like scallop, mussel, abalone, sea cucumber and clam etc.
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Unlike marine culture, freshwater culture is scattered all over the country. The main species are common carp, bighead carp, silver carp, grass carp, Tilapia, Chinese mitten crab, eel, river crab and shrimp. Most farms of fresh water culture are small scale and distributed in a wide geographical range, which makes freshwater products mainly focusing on local market. Also, in recent years, with the decrease of caught fish outputs and the increase of the price, the outputs of some freshwater fishes such as catfish and tilapia are growing rapidly to meet international market
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China’s aquaculture expansion has mainly relied on increasing the production capacity and farming area (Jorge et al, 2009). Together with the more demand of products, the more space is needed for aquaculture, that caused some conflicts of the fast expansion of the industry. China is a country that short of freshwater resource per capita. In many areas, domestic water is shortage. At the same time, aquaculture in lakes, rivers and reservoirs made the water eutropic and have influenced the supply of domestic water. If wastewater of aquaculture contains too much nutrients, the structure of natural species may be influenced and local ecosystem will be destroyed. The problem has caused more attention of the government. More strict regulations had
been made by the government related with the quality standards of the wastewater. On the other hand, with the fast grow of the Chinese economy; other industries have also developed very fast. Many heavy pollution industries e.g. papermaking, chemical industry would like to build the plants and need a big amount of water. The existence and expansion of these plants have limited the development of aquaculture.

For the seawater culture, the intensive culture has caused the water eutropic in some area. In recently year, the red tide erupted more frequently alongshore. It becomes a vicious circle. The wastewater from aquaculture and other industries made the pollution of the water and cause the red tide. On the other hand, the frequent occurrences of red tide have caused a great economic loss on breeding seafood, fishing, human health, and damaged coastal tourism. How to balance the development of aquaculture and to protect environment is a challenge that need to be solved

A Chinese aquaculture "cage" supplier here.

And an interesting report on the effect of one of China's decisions on aquaculture spreading around the world - this time in the insurance industry here.

Fish Stories Part 2: World Aquaculture Background

The UN's Food and Agricultural Organization reports at Fisheries and Aquaculture:

Fish harvest in China -Courtesy of FAO Aquaculture Photo Library

Aquaculture, probably the fastest growing food-producing sector, now accounts for nearly 50 percent of the world's food fish.

The two leading aquaculture nations are China and India.

Naturally, there are concerns that aquaculture (both inland (freshwater) and "mariculture"(ocean/littoral) be conducted in an environmentally sustainable/responsible/friendly manner - as the World Wildlife Foundation argues in the following video:


As set out in FAO's THE STATE OF WORLD FISHERIES AND AQUACULTURE 2012 (pdf),at number page 3, Asia accounts for 2/3 of fish consumption with Africa last on that list. From that same reference:

Bangladesh Carp Harvest -Courtesy of FAO Aquaculture Photo Library

"Capture" refers to non-farmed fish. Inland refers, essentially, to freshwater fish, marine to saltwater fish.

A couple of other important tables from the FAO 2012 report:

India Fish Harvest- Courtesy of FAO Aquaculture Photo Library

China, India, Vietnam,Indonesia, Bangladesh, and Thailand lead the world, with China far out in front. Norway is the sole Western nation in the top ten.

The leading fish produced in China, India and Bangladesh are varieties of carp, often considered a "trash" fish in Western cultures:

Production of freshwater fishes has always been dominated by carps (71.9 percent,24.2 million tonnes, in 2010). Among carps, 27.7 percent are non-fed filter-feeders and the rest are fed with low-protein feeds. Production of tilapias has a wide distribution, and 72 percent are raised in Asia (particularly in China and Southeast Asia), 19 percent in Africa, and 9 percent in America. Viet Nam dominates production of omnivorous Pangasius catfishes although there are other producers, such as Indonesia and Bangladesh. World production of Pangasius catfish may be understated
because booming production in India has yet to be reflected in statistics. In 2010, Asia accounted for 73.7 percent of the production of other catfish species, America took its share to 13.5 percent (with channel catfish production), leaving 12.3 percent of production in Africa (dominated by North African catfish). Carnivorous species such as perches, basses and snakeheads accounted for only 2.6 percent of all freshwater fish produced in 2010.

Fish Stories: A New EagleSpeak Series on Aquaculture

Back in August 2012, I decided I would work on a new series concerning aquaculture. Events, however, intervened (as events are wont to do). 

Now it is time to really kick off this series.

What follows is a re-posting of that earlier post:

There are billions of people on this planet and they need to be fed.

We farm the land and we provide grains and animals for harvest. But those grains and animals are land, feed and water intensive.

Animals produce waste and methane, one of those "greenhouse" gases.

Yikes, Malthus seems to be rising from the grave. Except, of course, that there may be some more efficient ways to feed the masses before we turn to Soylent Green. This is the first post in a new series of posts about aquaculture, which may be one of those ways.

If it seems strange to find this topic on a maritime security blog, well, food security is one aspect of national security and protecting the delivery of food from the sea - that's a maritime security issue.

Let's begin then, with a video that the National Aquaculture Association has kindly given me permission to embed - a primer on aquaculture, if you will:

Fish Stories: A New EagleSpeak Series on Aquaculture

There are billions of people on this planet and they need to be fed.

We farm the land and we provide grains and animals for harvest.

But those grains and animals are land, feed and water intensive. Animals produce waste and methane, one of those "greenhouse" gases.

Yikes, Malthus seems to be rising from the grave. Except, of course, that there may be some more efficient ways to feed the masses before we turn to Soylent Green.

This is the first post in a new series of posts about aquaculture, which may be one of those ways.

If it seems strange to find this topic on a maritime security blog, well, food security is one aspect of national security and protecting the delivery of food from the sea - that's a maritime security issue.

Let's begin then, with a video that the National Aquaculture Association has kindly given me permission to embed - a primer on aquaculture, if you will: