Source: FAO, The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture, 2006.
At the end of the Paleolithic our ancestors encountered “peak hunting and gathering” and started farming. The same is now happening with fisheries.
We are encountering “peak fish” now, and fish farming is taking off. Fish capture is stagnant or declining, but aquaculture is growing rapidly and is already or will soon provide more than half of the tonnage of fish caught in the wild.
Are farmed fish as tasty as wild fish? No, wild salmon is better that farmed salmon, just as wild boar is tastier than farmed pig. There is some decline in quality, but farming guarantees the survival of the farmed species and makes it possible for people who could not previously afford to consume them to do so.
