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REPORT ON FARMED FISH PRODUCTION OVERTAKING BEEF

WHO: Janet Larsen, Director of Research, Earth Policy Institute and J. Matthew Roney, Research Associate, Earth Policy Institute

WHAT: Report on world farmed fish production overtaking beef production for the first time in modern history.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 19, 2013

The world quietly reached a milestone in the evolution of the human diet in 2011. For the first time in modern history, world farmed fish production topped beef production. The gap widened in 2012, with output from fish farming—also called aquaculture—reaching a record 66 million tons, compared with production of beef at 63 million tons. And 2013 may well be the first year that people eat more fish raised on farms than caught in the wild. More than just a crossing of lines, these trends illustrate the latest stage in a historic shift in food production—a shift that at its core is a story of natural limits.

As the global demand for animal protein grew more than fivefold over the second half of the twentieth century, humans began to press against the productivity constraints of the world’s rangelands and oceans. Annual beef production climbed from 19 million tons in 1950 to more than 50 million tons in the late 1980s. Over the same period, the wild fish catch ballooned from 17 million tons to close to 90 million tons. But since the late 1980s, the growth in beef production has slowed, and the reported wild fish catch has remained essentially flat.

The bottom line is that getting much more food from natural systems may not be possible.

Janet Larsen and Matt Roney are available for interviews.

Read more about farmed fish topping beef production here.

For more information or to set up one-on-one interviews contact Reah Janise Kauffman, (202) 496-9290 x 12 rjk (at) earth-policy.org or Janet Larsen, (202) 496.9290 x 14 jlarsen (at) earth-policy.org or Matt Roney, at (202) 496-9290 x 17 jmroney (at) earth-policy.org