Fishing Industry by Country 2024

There are two distinct types of commercial fish production, both of which are measured in metric tons. Capture Fisheries catch and sell fish from the wild, while aquaculture production is human-maintained fish populations raised for consumption.

China produces a total of almost 86 million metric tons of fish each year, more than 60 million metric tons more than the number two producer, Indonesia. While China's capture fisheries production is significantly lower than the 72.8 million metric tons from aquaculture production, the 13 million metric tons of wild-caught fish is almost double the amount of fish caught by any other country. This has led to growing concern around the world about the sustainability of China's fishing practices.

The New York Times reports that China has depleted the fish populations in its own waters. As a result, China has been accused of encroaching on the waters of other countries, as well as plundering the unregulated areas of the ocean. They have elaborate fishing fleets made up of refrigerated cargo ships and smaller fishing vessels. The cargo ship holds both the caught fish and restocking supplies including fuel. As a result, fishing boats do not need to stop production in order to return to port. While there is growing concern about the sustainability of fishing worldwide, China is still positioned as a top fishing producer even without any of its capture fishing production.

Indonesia's total fish production is 21.8 million metric tons, followed by India with 14.4 million and Vietnam with 8.2 million. Much like China, these top producers have more production from aquaculture than capture fishing. However, the next three counties have significantly more production from capture fisheries. Peru has a total production of 6.7 million metric tons, only 150 thousand of which are produced through aquaculture. Russia's total production is 5.4 million metric tons with only 319 thousand of that from aquaculture. Finally, the United States has a total production of 4.7 million with aquaculture accounting for less than 10 percent of that.

Many in the US believe that wild-caught fish are better because they tend to be leaner than farm-raised fish. There is also a pervasive idea that farm fishing consists of keeping too many fish confined in dirty tanks. This is not necessarily the case, but the persistence of that belief could explain why the US focuses mainly on wild-caught fish.