Where Fish Is (Rarely) on the Menu

Thanks to it being a “highly accessible and affordable source of animal proteins and micronutrients” according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, fish and other marine animals play a major role in nutrition and food security around the world, particularly in coastal areas. However, there’s a huge gulf in per capita consumption of fish and other seafood, be it for cultural or simple geographic reasons.

Unsurprisingly, the countries with the highest consumption include coastal nations such as Iceland or the Maldives, where people consume more than 80 kilograms of aquatic foods per year on average. Portugal, South Korea and Japan are also high on the list of fish lovers, while landlocked countries such as Afghanistan, Ethiopia and Tajikistan are at the other end of the scale with per capita fish consumption of less than 1 kilogram per year.

Global average consumption of fish and other seafood reached a record high of 20.5 kilogram in 2019, continuing a continuous upward trend from 9.9 kg in the 1960s to 11.4 kg in the 1970s, 12.5 kg in the 1980s, 14.4 kg in the 2000s 19.6 kg in the 2010s. To keep up with soaring demand without depleting fish stocks, aquaculture, i.e. fish and marine animals that are grown and harvested rather than caught in the wild, has played an increasingly large role in global supply, accounting for nearly half the world’s production in 2020.