June 9, 2020 — Global seafood production reached a level of 179 million metric tons (MT) in 2018, with all but 23 million MT going to human consumption. Consequently, average consumption has crept up to 20.5 kilograms per capita, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimated in the 2020 edition of its biennial publication, “The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture,” released on 8 June.
In the SOFIA report, the U.N. body states that with a yearly growth rate of 3.1 percent, fish consumption has been outpacing both the world population expansion rate of 1.6 percent since 1961 and the 1.1 percent meat consumption rise.