Fish to 2030: The Role and Opportunity for Aquaculture

Abstract

Seafood sector can contribute to the global food supply in an important way, and provide an important source of animal protein. Based on observed regional trends in seafood production and consumption and using a global, partial-equilibrium, multi-market model, this study investigates what the global seafood market may look like in 2030. The model projects that the total fish supply will increase from 154 million tons in 2011 to 186 million tons in 2030, with aquaculture entirely responsible for the increase. The fastest aquaculture growth is expected for tilapia and shrimp, while the largest expansion is expected in India, Latin America and Caribbean and Southeast Asia. Fast-growing seafood demand in China and elsewhere represents a critical opportunity for global fisheries and aquaculture to improve their management and achieve sustainable seafood economy.

Keywords:

• feed management
• market outlook
• multi-market modeling
• seafood trade

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This is the result of a collaborative effort between IFPRI, FAO, the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, and the World Bank.

Notes

Stocks of 10 key fish species, which represent 30% of marine capture production, are fully harvested (FAO, 2012).

These are mainly countries, with some smaller nations grouped together to form regions.

The 20 countries/groups of countries are Argentina, Australia, Belgium-Luxembourg, Brazil, British Isles (including Ireland), Canada, Chile, Cote d’Ivoire, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russian Federation, Scandinavia, Spain/Portugal, Thailand, United States, Uruguay, and Vietnam.

The Asian countries affected in this scenario were Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam.

This substitution pattern, however, cannot be confirmed in the model results at the aggregate level. This is likely due to the fact that fishmeal-intensive species, such as shrimp and salmon, tend to have higher income elasticities of demand than low-trophic species and effects of output demand growth likely overweigh the effects of higher input costs.

The scenario utilizes the same feed requirement coefficients for fed aquaculture as under the baseline scenario.

Since domestic production is insufficient, Japan imports fishmeal, mainly from Peru.