World Aquaculture Magazine - June 2021

WWW.WA S .ORG • WORLD AQUACULTURE • JUNE 2021 25 RealityCheck#2: Aquaculture is not theworld’s fastest growing formof protein foodproduction. Godfray et al. (2018) reviewed global trends in meat consumption and pointed to a well-established empirical relationship known as “Bennett’s Law” (Bennett 1941), which states that, as people enter the middle class and become more wealthy, “their diets change from being based largely on starchy staples to diets that incorporate increasing amounts of refined grains, fruits, vegetables, meat and dairy” (Popkin 1998). As a poignant illustration of this, Godfray et al. (2018) documented the spectacular rise of meat consumption in China as the size of its middle class has increased (Fig. 1). There is every expectation that similar increases in meat consumption will occur with the rapidly urbanizing middle classes of Africa, Latin and South America. Edwards et al. (2019) state that: “Global total edible terrestrial animal-source food (beef and buffalo, pig and poultry) dwarfed the total global production of edible aquatic animal-source food (crustaceans, finfish and molluscs from aquaculture and capture fisheries combined) in 2015, at 324 million metric tons (MMT) and just over 100 MMT, respectively. Thus, global terrestrial animal- source food production was more than three times greater than production of edible aquatic animal-source foods, and more than six times greater than the nearly 50 MMT produced by aquaculture.” RealityCheck#3: Theworlddoes not get half of its fish fromaquaculture. You are not getting half of the seafood you eat from aquaculture if you live anywhere outside of Asia. Asia and China dominate all global aquaculture production for nearly every aquaculture species and system. China’s aquaculture is very dynamic, evolving over more than two thousand years, and is entering its next phase with the nation’s rapid economic rise and the massive urbanization of its coastal zone (Newton et al. 2021). China’s unique place in global aquaculture makes it an outlier in our new geographies. Scientists in aquaculture’s new geographies can learn much fromChina’s lead, but the real question is: What if any of it is relevant to us? The Naylor et al. (2021) review showed yet again two distinct aquaculture production worlds: the “aquaculturally-developed countries” (most of Asia) and the “aquaculturally-developing countries” (most of Africa, Europe, the Americas and Oceania). These new geographies comprise most of Mother Earth and the Oceans but represent a tiny amount of global aquaculture production. The global data from FAO affect us locally. They are being used routinely by very smart people who should know better not to use them for such a purpose. The FAO global aquaculture production data are so bimodal that any simplistic arithmetic calculation of a central tendency is meaningless, i.e., “the mean means nothing” (Fig. 2). If the world was getting half of its “fish” from aquaculture, that fish you would be eating would be some kind of carp, as 6 of the top 16 species produced in global animal aquaculture, totalling about 21 MMT, are carps (Table 3). ( C O N T I N U E D O N P A G E 2 6 ) TABLE 3. Top Sixteen Species Groups in Global Animal Aquaculture in million metric tons (MMT) (FAO 2020). Ranks Groups of Species TotalProduction (MMT) 1 Oysters 5.8 2 Grass carp 5.7 3 tie Indian major carps 5.0 3 tie White legged shrimp 5.0 5 Silver carp 4.8 6 Tilapia 4.5 7 Common carp 4.2 8 Manila clams 4.1 9 Bighead carp 3.1 10 Goldfish carp 2.8 11 Other freshwater fish 2.5 12 Atlantic salmon 2.4 13 Asian catfish 2.3 14 Scallops 1.9 15 Freshwater crayfish 1.7 16 Mussels 1.6 FIGURE 2. Is half of your ocean foods coming from aquaculture? “Say you were standing with one foot in the oven and one foot in an ice bucket. According to the percentage, you would be perfectly comfortable” -Bobby Bragan . If nearly all global aquaculture production is from Asia and almost nothing from the rest of the world and if you are located in aquaculture’s new geographies (i.e., anywhere outside of Asia), you do not get half of your seafood from aquaculture. And if you did get it from aquaculture, it’s likely you would be eating a carp.