Aquaculture is the cultivation of aquatic plants and animals for human use and is also referred to as aquafarming. To say that aquaculture has grown rapidly since 1970 would miss the point entirely. The quantity of aquatic produce harvested in 1970 was a mere fraction—1/20th—of that harvested in 2008. The growth of aquaculture has been strong across all regions of the world. Nonetheless, Asia has seen enough growth in aquacultural production to raise its already high percentage of world production in 1970 (69.6%) to a remarkable 88.8% in 2008. In the chart we provide here you will see the world’s population presented by region as well as the world’s aquacultural production by region.

The market sizes presented here do not include aquatic plants but do cover all caught and raised fish of any kind from marine and inland waterway sources.

Geographic reference: World
Year: 1980, 2000 and 2008
Market size: 4.7, 32.4 and 52.5 million tons respectively.
Source: “Table 4 — Aquaculture Production by Region: Quantity and Percentage of World Production,” The State of Fisheries & Aquaculture 2010, page 20, available online here. The population data used in the chart are from the Statistical Abstract of the United States 2011, available online here.
Original source: United Nations, Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO), Fisheries and
Aquaculture Department and U.S. Census Bureau.