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Maritime Forum

Map of the week – Aquaculture production

This week the Seafood Expo took place in Brussels, the world’s largest trade fair in the fisheries sector, with 1,850 exhibitors from 79 countries. For the occasion, we decided to feature one of the world's fastest-growing food sectors, aquaculture...

This week the Seafood Expo took place in Brussels, the world’s largest trade fair in the fisheries sector, with 1,850 exhibitors from 79 countries.

For the occasion, we decided to feature one of the world's fastest-growing food sectors, aquaculture, with a “Map of the week”. Aquaculture, also known as aquafarming, refers to the farming of aquatic (freshwater or saltwater) organisms, such as fish, molluscs, crustaceans and plants, for human use or consumption, under controlled conditions.

This sector accounts for more than 50% of the world’s seafood production for human consumption¹. It is mainly composed of SMEs or micro-enterprises in coastal and rural areas. Seafood has an impact on the life of millions of citizens: it is estimated that one person out of 10 depends on seafood for their livelihood and that 1 billion people rely on seafood as their primary source of animal protein¹.

Our map shows the aquaculture production by country in thousands of tonnes over an 8 year period from 2008 to 2016. We can clearly see that in 2016, Spain has the highest production, followed by Turkey, the UK and Greece. It is maybe not a coincidence as these countries’ classical dishes are often composed of fish and seafood such as paella and fish and chips!

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Data displayed in this map were provided by EUROSTAT

[1] https://ourocean2017.org/sites/default/files/sustainable-fisheries_en.pdf