Medidas de Gestao das Pescarias Marinhas e Aquicultura 2019 The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2018 | Page 198
PART 4 OUTLOOK AND EMERGING ISSUES
PROJECTIONS OF
FISHERIES, AQUACULTURE
AND MARKETS
short-term fish demand and supply projections
(Box 30) and medium-term projections obtained
using the FAO fish model (see FAO, 2012d, pp.
186 –193), a dynamic policy-specific partial
equilibrium model developed in 2010 to gain
insight on the potential path of development of
the fisheries and aquaculture sector. The fish
model has links to, but is not integrated into, the
Aglink-Cosimo model used to generate the
The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture has
presented the results of specific fish projections
in ever y edition since 2014. This section presents
BOX 30
SHORT-TERM FISH DEMAND AND SUPPLY PROJECTIONS FOR EVALUATING THE GROWTH
POTENTIAL OF AQUACULTURE
FAO has developed a short-term projection model to
assess and monitor potential fish demand and supply
gaps over a five-year horizon, with the aim of
facilitating evidence-based decision-making at the
national, regional and global levels (Cai and Leung,
2017). The model includes:
a demand-side component, which estimates the
growth in fish demand;
a supply-side component, which estimates the
trend in aquaculture growth;
a set of indicators that measure gaps between
demand and supply.
Unlike the sophisticated models used to predict likely
scenarios of fish production, trade, consumption and
prices in the medium or long term, as reported in the
main text of this section and included in publications
such as Fish to 2030 (World Bank, 2013) and the
annual OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook (OECD,
2018), the FAO short-term projection model estimates
the potential change of a country’s fish demand as
driven by its expected income and population growth,
with the assumption of no changes in fish prices in the
country. The benchmark fish supply is projected over
the same five-year horizon by assuming that the
country’s aquaculture production will follow the recent
five-year trend while its capture fisheries production
remains stable. Then the potential fish demand is
compared to the benchmark fish supply, and the
resulting fish demand–supply gap can be measured by
the shortage or surplus of the potential demand
compared to the potential supply; the share of the
potential demand increase that can be covered by the
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potential supply increase; or the growth rate of
aquaculture production needed to close the demand–
supply gap.
The results indicate, for example, that for the five-
year horizon between the mid-2010s and the early
2020s, aquaculture growth following the recent trend
would be able to cover only 40 percent of the global
hike in fish demand driven by income and population
growth, leaving a fish demand–supply gap of 28 million
tonnes in the early 2020s. According to this projection,
global aquaculture would need to grow 9.9 percent per
year in order to fill the world fish demand–supply gap.
In contrast with most projections on fish demand
and supply, which focus mainly on regional and global
results, the short-term FAO projection model estimates
the potential demand–supply gaps for nearly 200
countries or territories, about 40 regions or country
groups and the entire world. The results are presented
in a disaggregated form for five basic species groups
(marine fish, freshwater and diadromous fish,
crustaceans, cephalopods and other molluscs) and for
four more aggregated groups (molluscs [cephalopods +
other molluscs], shellfish [crustaceans + molluscs],
finfish [freshwater and diadromous + marine fish] and
fish [finfish + shellfish]).
The detailed results (presented in the Annex of Cai
and Leung, 2017) can be used to inform policy-making
or business management at the national or industry
level. For example, the results have been used to
prepare a policy brief on aquaculture growth potential
in Nigeria (see Allen, Rachmi and Cai, 2017) and to
facilitate a review of the marine finfish industry in the
Mediterranean (Represas and Moretti, 2017).