Chart of the Week: Why Seafood Prices Have Rocketed

Actually, three charts altogether:

Issue 1: Global fish landings have stagnated since the 1990s. Effectively, demand is increasingly being met through aquaculture.

Issue 2: Per capita consumption has risen drastically, to over 20kg per person, tripling over the past 65 years. Roughly 85% of fish supply is now used for food, up from half in the 1970s. It’s not just population growth that is stressing fish supplies.

Issue 3: Only 10% of global fish stocks are underutilised. The ratio of fishing stocks that are being exploited at biologically unsustainable rates has been increasing, and is more than double what it was 40 years ago.

Technical Notes:

“The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2016,” Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), 2016