Economics of Fisheries and Aquaculture

Archaeological evidence indicates that fishing was one of the earliest human production activities. Early fishing seems to have been mainly hunting and gathering along shores and inlets with fish farming emerging somewhat later in time. Capture fisheries expanded rapidly in the 19 and 20 centuries AD reaching the peak annual production of over 90 million metric tonnes in the early 1990s. Since then, there has been little or no increase in capture fishery production. By contrast, fish farming production has grown very fast since the 1970s and continues to do so. Currently it accounts for over third of global fish production and close to half of the production for direct human consumption.