The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2010 - FAO

World review of fisheries and aquaculture
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farmers were in Asia, followed by Africa (9.3 percent), Latin America (2.9 percent),
Europe (1.4 percent), North America (0.7 percent) and Oceania (0.1 percent) (Table 7).
China is the country with the largest number of fishers and fish farmers, representing
nearly one-third of the world total. In 2008, 13.3 million people were employed as
fishers and fish farmers in China, of whom 8.5 million people were full time. In 2008,
other countries with a significant number of fishers and fish farmers were India and
Indonesia (Table 8).
Table 9 compares fish production by continent with the number of people
employed in the primary sector. It illustrates the numbers of people involved and the
different scales of operations. The highest concentration of people employed is in
Asia, but average annual production per person there is only 2.4 tonnes, whereas it
is almost 24 tonnes in Europe and more than 18 tonnes in North America. The high
figure for Oceania (23 tonnes) in part reflects the incomplete reporting by many
countries of this continent. The figures on production per person indicate the degree of
industrialization of fishing activities and, in Africa and Asia, also the key role played by
small-scale fisheries. The differences are even more evident in the aquaculture sector,
where, for example, fish farmers in Norway have an average annual production of
172 tonnes per person, while in Chile the figure is about 72 tonnes, in China 6 tonnes
and in India only 2 tonnes.
The national statistics available to FAO are often too irregular and lacking in
enough detail to permit a more in-depth analysis of the employment structure at
the world level. However, it is apparent that, in the most important fishing nations
systematically providing this information, the share of employment in capture
fisheries is stagnating or decreasing and increased opportunities are being provided
by aquaculture. According to the estimates based on the available data for 2008, fish
farmers accounted for one-quarter of the total number of workers, totalling almost
11 million people. However, these figures are indicative and they underestimate the
real number as many countries still do not collect employment data separately for the
two sectors. Since 1990, fish farmers have experienced the greatest increases in their
numbers, with most of the growth occurring in Asia, particularly in China, where the
number of fish farmers increased by 189 percent in the period 1990–2008.
Table 7
World fishers and fish farmers by continent
1990 1995 2000 2005 2008
(Thousands)
Africa 1 832 1 950 3 657 3 683 4 187
Asia 23 736 28 096 35 242 36 860 38 439
Europe 626 466 746 662 641
Latin America and the Caribbean 1 104 1 104 1 250 1 271 1 287
North America 385 376 343 338 337
Oceania 55 52 49 54 56
World 27 737 32 043 41 287 42 868 44 946
Of which fish farmers 1
Africa 1 11 78 120 123
Asia 3 698 6 692 6 647 9 828 10 143
Europe 14 12 66 78 80
Latin America and the Caribbean 68 86 187 438 443
North America ... ... ... ... ...
Oceania 1 1 5 4 4
World 3 783 6 803 6 983 10 467 10 793
Note: ... = data not available.
1
Data for 1990 and 1995 were reported by only a limited number of countries and, therefore, are not comparable with
those for later years.