AQUACULTURE GROWTH: WHERE, WHEN AND SOME THOUGHTS ON WHY

There is often substantial focus on the fact that most of the world´s aquaculture production takes place in eastern Asia, and in particular in China. While this is important, it also masks several other important patterns. Among the most important is aquaculture production during the last decades has increased substantially at all continents, and there are several non-Asian countries where production in recent decades has increased much faster than in China. Almost equally important is the fact that Asia in general and China in particular are much more important when production is measured by quantity rather than value. Hence, the economic impact of aquaculture is significantly higher in other parts of the world than what the production numbers increase.

In this paper, we compare growth patterns by quantity and value for important countries as well as the world´s regions, as well as for different species and species groups. The analysis is highly instructive in showing that aquaculture is a truly global industry, and that it is likely to become even more so in the future, as several non-Asian countries have very high growth rates despite already having a significant production, but that they also were late starters. It is also of interest how several developed countries that where among the world´s largest aquaculture producers in 1975 has been dropping on the list as they have not taken part in the blue revolution to any extent. The most notable is the United States, which were the 3^rd largest aquaculture producer in 1975. In 2015, the US does not make the top ten list, despite a significant increase in production.