The subject of fish consumption has generated some interest on the Listserve and I would like to expand on my earlier contribution. During the 1980's and 1990's I undertook several projects and consultancies for FAO and this generated in me at interest in fish as a food commodity and the contribution of fish to overall food supplies in different countries. In 1995 I participated in an FAO expert working group on contribution of fish to food security and I compiled data on fish consumption which at that time were available up to 1992 in FAOSTAT. I had my memory of these tables in mind when I responded to Alex's original question, but I thought I should bring my tables up-to-date in order to comment on the current situation. I attach two tables in Microsoft Excel format and readers can manipulate them and plot them as they wish. The source is FAOSTAT available at http://faostat.fao.org/default.aspx. Click Consumption on the top line then Livestock and Fish Primary Equivalent to bring up the database. Select the country or group of countries; a plus sign after a grouping of countries denoted the summary over all countries in the group whereas a > symbol denotes that data for individual countries within the group will be shown. Under item select Fish, seafood. Under element select units in which you wish to express the later; I use kg/capita/yr. Then select the span of years. Click 'show data' to display the table. The table can be downloaded and will appear automatically in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. I attach 2 tables for 2 country groupings to illustrate.
Table 1 is the data from 1990 to 2003, the latest year shown in the database, for the OECD countries. I have selected this grouping because it includes the economically developed and rich countries. Citizens of these countries will have high spending power and access to a wide choice of foods so whether they consume fish products or some other alternative food is largely a matter of choice and availability and not of necessity. I have shown on the bottom line of this table the values for world per capita consumption. The FAOSTAT data are rounded to whole numbers, but you can see that my estimate for 2003 based on fish production used for human consumption is in agreement with the FAOSTAT value. (In 'fish' I include shellfish).
Notice that over all the OECD countries per capita fish consumption has not changed over the 14 year span of this table. I find this constancy surprising. Over this period there has been increasing emphasis on the health-promoting benefits of fish consumption and generally in countries such as those in the OECD there have been official campaigns to promote consumption of fishery products. Overall knowledge of these benefits and the official campaigns seem to have made little impression on the overall per capita consumption of fish in the OECD countries. A consumption of 27 kg/yr lightweight equivalent equates to approximately 200 g/week of edible flesh assuming an overall yield of 40% from the live weight. The per capita consumption includes infants and children so the 200g/week represents more than one fish meal/week for adults on average in the OECD countries. This overall figure though obscures wide differences between countries. Hungary has the lowest consumption of fish and this might be expected bearing in mind it is a landlocked country, but Switzerland, also a landlocked country, has a much higher consumption. Austria too is a landlocked country and has a consumption of 14 units, the same as Germany with access to North Sea and with a quite large fishing industry. Iceland has by far the highest fish consumption which equates to more than one fish meal/day, but that is an exceptional case. Japan is next highest, but in both that country and in Iceland consumption has decreased slightly in the period under review. Consumption in the UK has increased since 1995, which may be a result of official nutritional advice, but this period has also coincided with a marked increase in cookery programmes on television many which have promoted the culinary delights of fish and shellfish and perhaps have had more influence on fish consumption than the official promotions. Browse these figures if your country is listed, and try and work out your own explanations.
Table 2 shows food consumption in those countries defined by the United Nations as 'Low Income Food Deficient' (LIFD) countries, that is, countries with low per capita incomes and inability to grow or import adequate food supplies for the population. The list is much longer than that of the OECD countries. It includes China and perhaps now with the marked increase in the industrialisation of this country it perhaps no longer should is in this category, but it is interesting to note the changes in fish consumption there. Overall the recorded per capita consumption of fish in the LIFD countries is about half of that in the OECD countries, but encouragingly it has increased markedly over the period under review. Again, there is a wide range of consumption among countries and for some the FAOSTAT data records no consumption of fish at all. Many have consumptions less than 5kg/per capita/yr, about one meal of fish/month. Small island states - Kiribati is an example - not surprisingly have high consumptions. So do African countries with access to the sea, for example those on the West coast, whereas inland countries with large populations such as Congo DR have low consumptions. The table includes a line for developing countries in Africa as a group and shows that in this group fish consumption has remained static over the period under review. What is striking in this table is the increase in consumption in China. I have seen reservations expressed about fishery statistics for China and perhaps some of this increase is due to improved recording of catchers and harvests.
It's interesting to make some projections of fish consumption into the future. Production from capture fisheries seems to reached a plateau with an average catch over the 10 years 1996 to 2005 of 92.9 million tonnes. Allowing for the average amount going for nonhuman food of 31.5 million tonnes leaves 61 million tonnes as the contribution to fish supplies from capture fisheries. Aquaculture production over the same 10-year period has increased approximately linearly by 2.5 million tonnes a year. Extrapolating these values to 2015 and using the estimates of world population in that year the predicted per capita fish consumption in that year is 18.5kg/yr. That is, aquaculture production is increasing faster than population growth allowing for an increase in global per capita consumption. It is always risky to extrapolate outside of the domain of the original and I will leave others to argue whether this increase in aquaculture production can be maintained. To my mind one thing that is certain is that fish production can not increase sufficiently to allow for a global per capita consumption to approach that of the OECD countries now.
Peter Howgate
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