Fisheries and Aquaculture Around the World

Global fish production splits between capture fisheries, catching wild fish and shellfish from oceans, rivers, and lakes, and aquaculture, farming aquatic species in ponds, cages, or coastal enclosures. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization's biennial State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture report, aquaculture output surpassed capture fisheries as the larger source of fish for direct human consumption during the early 2010s, and China alone now accounts for well over half of global aquaculture production, farming species that range from carp in freshwater ponds to shrimp in coastal brackish ponds along its southern coast. This shift, sometimes called the Blue Revolution by analogy with the Green Revolution in cereals, has made aquaculture the fastest-growing major food-production sector in the world over recent decades.