By: Staff Writer
June 11, 2024
The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) in a new report said that fisheries and aquaculture hit a “new high,” in 2022, but Caribbean not exploiting their resources.
The report, The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture (SOFIA) said that global fisheries and aquaculture production in 2022 surged to 223.2 million tonnes, a 4.4 percent increase from the year 2020. Production comprised 185.4 million tonnes of aquatic animals and 37.8 million tonnes of algae.
The report also said: “For the first time, aquaculture surpassed capture fisheries in aquatic animal production with 94.4 million tonnes, representing 51 percent of the world total and a record 57 percent of the production destined for human consumption.
“Aquaculture remains dominated by a small number of countries, with many low-income countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean not exploiting their full potential.”
It added: “World aquaculture production reached a new record of 130.9 million tonnes in 2022, up by 6.6 percent from 2020 and comprising 94.4 million tonnes of aquatic animals and 36.5 million tonnes of algae. Asia contributed 91.4 percent of total aquaculture production, followed by Latin America and the Caribbean (3.3 percent), Europe (2.7 percent), Africa (1.9 percent), Northern America (0.5 percent) and Oceania (0.2 percent). Ten leading countries (China, Indonesia, India, Viet Nam, Bangladesh, Philippines, Republic of Korea, Norway, Egypt and Chile) produced 89.8 percent of the total.”
Latin America and the Caribbean accounted for 4.3 million tonnes of aquaculture production, around 3.3 percent of world total. This makes the region the second largest aquaculture producer, albeit significantly behind Asia (91.4 percent of world total).
Latin America and the Caribbean accounted for 17.7 million tonnes of fisheries and aquaculture production, 8 percent of the world total, growing to 9 percent when considering only production of aquatic animals.
“FAO welcomes the significant achievements thus far, but further transformative and adaptive actions are needed to strengthen the efficiency, inclusiveness, resilience and sustainability of aquatic food systems and consolidate their role in addressing food insecurity, poverty alleviation and sustainable governance,” said FAO Director-General QU Dongyu. “That’s why FAO advocates Blue Transformation, to meet the overall requirements of better production, better nutrition, a better environment and a better life, leaving no one behind.”