Medidas de Gestao das Pescarias Marinhas e Aquicultura 2019 The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2018 | Page 89

THE STATE OF WORLD FISHERIES AND AQUACULTURE 2018
FIGURE 31
RELATIVE CONTRIBUTION OF AQUACULTURE AND CAPTURE FISHERIES TO FISH FOR HUMAN
CONSUMPTION
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
1956
Capture
1966
1976
1986
1996
2006
2016
Aquaculture
consumers. Imports make up a substantial and
increasing portion of fish consumed in Europe
and North America (about 70 percent) and
Africa (about 40 percent) because of solid
demand, including that for non-locally produced
species, in the face of static or declining
domestic fisher y production. In many
developing countries fish consumption is mainly
based on domestic production, and consumption
is stimulated more by supply than by demand.
However, with rising domestic income,
emerging economies are increasing their
imports to diversif y the t ypes of fish consumed.
Despite trade expansion and technological
advances in processing, preser vation and
transportation over recent decades, fish is a
highly perishable food, and supplying markets
distant from where fish is caught or farmed
involves significant logistical challenges and
cost considerations. Beyond these supply-related
issues, consumer demand may be lacking where
people have not historically consumed fish in
large quantities and do not have cultural and
dietar y familiarit y with fish as a food group. In
these markets, increasing fish consumption
requires marketing and awareness raising
campaigns in addition to the establishment of
supply infrastructure.
Although fish producers and marketers can
maintain a degree of responsiveness to the
evolution of consumer preferences, natural
resource constraints and biological considerations
are key in determining which species and
products are made available to consumers. This
characteristic of the fisher y and aquaculture
sector is clearly ref lected in the rapid growth of
the aquaculture industr y since the mid-1980s,
coinciding with the relative stabilit y of capture
fisheries production since the late 1980s. In
parallel with the growth in aquaculture
production, the share of farmed fish in human
diets has increased quickly, with a milestone
reached in 2013 when the aquaculture sector’s
contribution to the amount of fish available for
human consumption overtook that of wild-caught
fish for the first time. The share of aquaculture
products in total food fish consumption was 51
percent in 2015 and, according to preliminar y
estimates, 53 percent in 2016, as compared with
6 percent in 1966, 14 percent in 1986 and 41
percent in 2006 (Figure 31). Aquaculture producers
are able to exercise much greater control over fish
production processes than capture fisheries, and
the aquaculture sector is more conducive to
vertical and horizontal integration in production
and supply chains. Thus the aquaculture sector
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