Long-term trends

The total production by OECD countries has decreased by more than 10% during the past decade. As the world fish production increased during the same period, the relative contribution of OECD countries dropped from 26% (in 1995) to 16% (in 2004). The decrease of the overall OECD production masks various tendencies. While aquaculture production increased by around 8% between 1995 and 2003, marine capture fisheries production dropped by 19%. This latter evolution mainly reflects both the worrying state of some major fish stocks, especially in the northern hemisphere, and changes in bilateral or international fishing arrangements regarding access to fish stocks in third countries’ waters. Worldwide, the Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates that around 16% of the stocks are overexploited, 7% are collapsed, while around 50% of the stocks are fully exploited. The remaining is either not fully exploited (21%) or under-exploited (3%).

Marine fish capture fell particularly sharply in Denmark, Greece and Japan between 1995 and 2004; in these countries, the average annual decline exceeded 5%. A few countries did, however, increase captures – Canada, Australia and the Netherlands all raised their tonnages by an average of 1% or more per year between 1995 and 2004. Japan and the United States remained the largest producers despite their catches declining by approximately 5% and 1% a year, respectively.

Most countries increased their aquaculture production, with annual growth of over 10% in Turkey, Greece, Norway and Ireland. Aquaculture production fell rather sharply in Mexico, Finland and Sweden but, by 2004, aquaculture accounted for over 16% of total tonnages of fish production – up from 13% in 1995.