Aquaculture

Lore & Background

About 430 (97%) of the species cultured were domesticated during the 20th and 21st centuries, of which an estimated 106 came in the decade to 2007. Given the long-term importance of agriculture, to date, only 0.08% of known land plant species and 0.0002% of known land animal species have been domesticated, compared with 0.17% of known marine plant species and 0.13% of known marine animal species. Domestication typically involves about a decade of scientific research.

Domesticating aquatic species involves fewer risks to humans than do land animals, which took a large toll in human lives. Most major human diseases originated in domesticated animals, including diseases such as smallpox and diphtheria, that like most infectious diseases, move to humans from animals. No human pathogens of comparable virulence have yet emerged from marine species.

Global Scale and Geographic Concentration

Aquaculture has grown into a massive global industry. By 2019, reported output exceeded 120 million tonnes worth roughly 274 billion US dollars, and by 2022 that figure climbed to 130.9 million tonnes valued at 312.8 billion dollars. Yet the FAO itself cautions that the reliability of these reported numbers is questionable. Geographically, the industry is heavily skewed: in 2024, Asia produced around 89 percent of the world's farmed aquatic animals, with Latin America and the Caribbean at 3 percent, Europe and Africa each at 2 percent, and Northern America and Oceania trailing behind at 0.4 and 0.2 percent respectively.

Five nations—China, Indonesia, India, Vietnam, and Bangladesh—accounted for 82 percent of total output. Freshwater systems dominate, contributing 64 million tonnes (63 percent) of aquatic animal production, while marine and coastal systems supplied the remaining 38 million tonnes (37 percent). Aquaculture production now surpasses that of capture fisheries, and the sector's relative GDP contribution spans a wide range from 0.01 to 10 percent depending on the country.

Domestication and the Blue Revolution

The push toward aquaculture was driven by stagnating wild fisheries and rising demand for quality protein. Early proponents envisioned a Blue Revolution mirroring the Green Revolution that had transformed terrestrial agriculture. In 1973, ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau urged humanity to turn to the sea with new understanding and technology to feed growing populations. The domestication effort has been remarkably recent: as of 2007, roughly 97 percent of the 430 cultured species had been domesticated in the 20th or 21st century, with an estimated 106 added in the decade before 2007.

By comparison, only 0.08 percent of known land plant species and 0.0002 percent of known land animal species have been domesticated, versus 0.17 percent of marine plants and 0.13 percent of marine animals. A typical domestication project takes about a decade of research. Notably, marine species pose far fewer zoonotic risks than land animals—no human pathogens of comparable virulence to smallpox or diphtheria have emerged from cultured marine species.

Cultivation Environments and Methods

Aquaculture is practiced across a spectrum of settings. Onshore systems—tanks, ponds, raceways, and aquaponics—give operators full control over water quality, oxygen levels, feed, and temperature. Inshore operations sit in sheltered shallow waters near a coastline, exposing the stock to more naturalistic conditions. Offshore aquaculture, conducted in cages, racks, or bags within fenced sections of open water, subjects organisms to diverse natural forces including ocean currents, diel vertical migration, and nutrient cycles.

The FAO defines the practice as requiring some form of intervention—regular stocking, feeding, predator protection—and implies ownership of the cultivated stock. Beyond single-species farming, integrated approaches like aquaponics and integrated multi-trophic aquaculture combine fish rearing with aquatic plant cultivation. The range of cultured organisms spans fish, crustaceans, mollusks, algae, and ornamental species, with mariculture specifically denoting seawater and lagoon-based operations.

Sustainability Pressures and Environmental Stewardship

The industry faces significant sustainability challenges. In current practice, producing one kilogram of a piscivorous species like salmon requires several kilograms of wild fish for feed, raising concerns about over-exploiting forage fish. Researchers are developing plant- and insect-based feeds to reduce this dependency.

The FAO identifies aquaculture as one of the industries most directly affected by climate change and its impacts. Some farming operations contribute nutrient pollution or transfer diseases to wild populations. To mitigate these effects, biological control methods are already in use—cleaner fish such as lumpsuckers and wrasse help manage sea lice in salmon farms.

Spatial planning and siting models are being applied to minimize environmental footprint. Aquaculture also serves a restorative role, aiding the rehabilitation of marine and freshwater ecosystems and the reconstruction of endangered aquatic species populations. Technology has expanded cultivation into coastal marine waters and open oceans, responding to growing global seafood demand.

Reader's Guide

Aquaculture can be conducted in completely artificial facilities built on land (onshore aquaculture), as in the case of fish tank, ponds, aquaponics or raceways, where the living conditions rely on human control such as water quality (oxygen), feed or temperature. Alternatively, they can be conducted on well-sheltered shallow waters nearshore of a body of water (inshore aquaculture), where the cultivated species are subjected to relatively more naturalistic environments; or on fenced/enclosed sections of open water away from the shore (offshore aquaculture), where the species are either cultured in cages, racks or bags and are exposed to more diverse natural conditions such as water currents (such as ocean currents), diel vertical migration and nutrient cycles. Particular kinds of aquaculture include fish farming, shrimp farming, oyster farming, mariculture, pisciculture, algaculture (such as seaweed farming), and the cultivation of ornamental fish. Particular methods include aquaponics and integrated multi-trophic aquaculture, both of which integrate fish farming and aquatic plant farming.

Did You Know?

• In 2016, aquaculture was the source of 96.5 percent by volume of the total 31.2 million tonnes of wild-collected and cultivated aquatic plants combined.