The global seafood industry has experienced a dramatic transformation over the past seventy years, shifting from wild fisheries to aquaculture, with production moving from high-income to middle-income countries and new trade patterns emerging as middle-income countries grow in importance, especially in aquaculture.
In the 1950s, wild harvest dominated the global seafood supply, and high-income countries such as Japan and the United States dominated production, supplying nearly 70% of the world’s seafood. Landings in high-income countries peaked in 1995 and have declined since. Meanwhile, upper-middle-income countries saw increased landings and overtook high-income countries by 2000 as the main wild fish source. Lower-middle-income countries also grew, and their combined landings offset the decline in high-income countries, resulting in a plateau in total landings.
Global aquaculture growth was steady until the 1980s when production surged, and surpassed wild fisheries as the main seafood source by 2022. Advances in nutrition, genetics, and disease control fueled this acceleration. The growth in aquaculture in the late 20th century was primarily concentrated in upper-middle-income countries, more specifically, Asia, as this region emerged as the major aquaculture producer, accounting for 70% of global farmed output China alone producing over half of all aquaculture products. High-income countries have slow growth due to regulation, and low-income countries face capacity issues. Seafood production share in high-income countries dropped to 12%, while the share of middle-income countries rose to 80% (Figure 1).
Production shifts have impacted trade, with high-income countries increasingly relying on seafood imports from middle-income producers. High-income countries are the largest importers, accounting for 60% of exports, 42% of upper middle-income, and 48% of lower middle-income exports. Meanwhile, aquaculture in middle-income countries has supported higher seafood consumption.