Friday, September 24, 2010

Fish Consumption Patterns

The next section of an FAO report looking at the impact of rising feed ingredient prices on aquafeeds and aquaculture production, looks at fish consumption patterns in Asia and Europe and the implications for the use of feed in aquaculture. Written by Krishen Rana, University of Stirling, UK and Mohammad Hasan, Fisheries and Aquaculture Management Division, FAO.

During the 1990s, global apparent consumption of fish increased. The global average apparent per capita consumption increased from about 9 kg per year in the early 1960s to 16.3 kg in 1999 (WHO, 2002). The global per capita availability of fish and fishery products has, therefore, nearly doubled in 40 years, outpacing population growth. This development was heavily dominated by events in China, which emerged as the world’s largest fish producer during this period (Popkin, 2001). In fact, excluding China, the apparent consumption per person in the rest of the world actually declined from 14.4 kg in 1990 to 13.1 kg in 1999. However, it is important to note that such global figures mask the very wide differences among countries in the amount of fish used for food consumption (FAO, 2003) (Table 15).

In both Asia and Europe, the low proportion of freshwater fish in per capita fish consumption indicates the preference for marine (including brackishwater) fish. East and Southeast Asia, where aquaculture is growing fast, this trend is quite evident when fish consumption is compared with South Asia. A majority of the cultured marine species are high-value and depend on high-quality complete diets. Driving forces that influence consumer behaviour and lead to an increase in the demand for various types of fish and meat are urbanization, lifestyle and dietary habits (Popkin, 1999). The forces that influence fish consumption, however, may vary between developing and developed countries. Delgado (1999) pointed out that in developing countries, increasing income and urbanization would be the leading factors for the increasing demand for fish and meat by 2020 (Delgado et al., 2003). Lubchenco (2003) claimed that the increasing demand in developed countries is driven by increased consumer awareness of the health and nutritional benefits of seafood, increased standardization and availability of products and cheaper prices. The relationships between income and urbanization and fish consumption are clearly important factors to be taken into consideration in the calculation of future fish demand and type of fish as there is a trend in urbanization globally.

The increase in population between 2005 and 2030 is expected to be 1.7 billion. This increase will be primarily accounted for by the growth in the urban areas of less developed regions, which is expected to reach 3.9 billion from 2.3 billion in 2005 (UN, 2007). Unlike developing regions, developed regions had already attained high levels of urbanization by 1950 (Table 16). It is projected that similar levels of urbanization will take place in the developing world. Between 2000 and 2030, Asia’s urban population will increase from 1.36 billion to 2.64 billion, that of Africa from 294 million to 742 million, and that of Latin America and the Caribbean from 394 million to 609 million. As a result of these shifts, developing countries will have 80 percent of the world’s urban population in 2030 (UN, 2007). By then, Africa and Asia will host almost seven out of every ten urban inhabitants in the world. With urbanization, people are increasingly drawn towards urban settlements and as both the level and distribution of income changes, the pattern of fish demand will change, with important implications for the demand for fish, and, in turn, implications for the type of feed used.



Consumers are as diverse in their consumption preferences as the fish products they consume. The increasing demand in developed countries, where urbanization is high, has been mostly for high-value fish species. Thus, the demand for high-value species, which consume high-quality feeds, may increase in developing countries as urbanization increases. Although growth in all aquaculture sectors is increasing (see Section 1.2), it can already be seen that exceptionally high growth rates have occurred in the production of high- value and carnivorous species such as freshwater swamp eel, mandarin fish, channel catfish, red swamp crawfish and freshwater swamp eel.

The increasing supply of high-value species is associated with decreasing market price of high-value species. The decrease in market price of high-value species may be attributed to the promotion of intensive practices in recent years to increase production, development of complete commercial performance diets and the competitive market environment. For example, the rapidly increasing production of whiteleg shrimp has led to price depression in the international markets (FAO, 2006). Similarly, farm-gate value for 15–20 g size whiteleg shrimp has steadily decreased from US$5/kg in 2000 to about US$3.00–3.50/kg in 2005. The market prices of European seabass and gilthead seabream imported to Italy from Greece dropped from €7/kg in 1999 to €4.6/kg in 2007 and €6/kg in 1999 to €3.8/kg in 2007, respectively (Fish Site, 2007).

Monday, September 6, 2010

Projected Global Aquaculture Production

The first section of an FAO report looking at the impact of rising feed ingredient prices on aquafeeds and aquaculture production, looks at projected global aquaculture production. Written by Krishen Rana, University of Stirling, UK and Mohammad Hasan, Fisheries and Aquaculture Management Division, FAO. Projected Global Aquaculture Production with Contributions from Asia and Europe and the Implications for Aquafeeds

With stagnating global capture fisheries production, there is growing expectation for aquaculture to meet the shortfall of aquatic products and to cater to the growing demand of the increasing population. Predictions of the exact shortfall are imprecise: many forecasts have been developed based on a wide range of assumptions (Ye, 1999; Delgado et al., 2003; Wijkstrom, 2003; Dey, Rodriguez and Briones, 2004; Brugère and Ridler, 2004).

Delgado et al. (2003) with their International Model for Policy Analysis of Agricultural Commodities and Trade (IMPACT model) attempted to address the complexity inherent in creating a demand forecast by incorporating prices and their effects on consumer demand into the IMPACT model. Predictions were made using three main scenarios. Under the baseline scenario, which is the most plausible, “best guess” assumptions, global food-fish production was projected to reach 130 million tonnes by 2020 and aquaculture was expected to produce 41 percent (53.6 million tonnes) of this production. However, projected production at 2020 for all models (assuming a capture fisheries growth of 0.9 percent per year) has already been achieved (Table 4).

In their study for FAO, Brugère and Ridler (2004) adapted the studies of Delgado et al. (2003) for national predictions by considering government policy and production targets in national plans. Such national predictions were made for China, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Bangladesh, Chile, Viet Nam, the Philippines, Egypt, Brazil and Canada (Table 5).

The global actual average annual growth rate of 7.6 percent (from 2000 to 2006) (see footnote 2 in Table 4) and actual average annual growth rates of leading aquaculture producing countries in Asia (Table 5) suggest that all forecasted targets set for 2010 and 2020 by the forecast models in Table 4 are likely to be met.

These targets together with historic trends in species contribution to annual production can be used to forecast estimates of production tonnage and to predict trends in intensification of aquaculture practices for the various species groups farmed. These scenarios can help to understand the future demand and pressure on quantity and types of feed ingredients that may be required to meet production targets. For this purpose, the food-fish aquaculture production outlook projected to 2020 by Brugère and Ridley (2004) based on country national plans was used.

Contribution by species group to the forecasted aquaculture production (excluding aquatic plants) in 2020 is given in Table 6. To estimate the contribution of species groups to forecasted aquaculture production (excluding aquatic plants) to 2020 in countries listed in Table 6, the 17-year (1990–2006) average annual percentage contributions of the species groups (for Bangladesh, the 12-year average) were applied to 2020 production predictions.

Similarly, the contributions by species group were estimated for Europe based on the projected aquaculture production (excluding aquatic plants) forecasted by Failler (2008) in the 11 leading aquaculture producing countries in Europe (Table 7), which accounted for 88.0 percent of the total European aquaculture production (excluding aquatic plants) in 2006. Projected contributions by species group to aquaculture production (excluding aquatic plants) by 2020 in selected leading aquaculture countries in Asia

Projected contributions by species group to aquaculture production by 2020 in selected leading aquaculture countries in Europe