There are two main ways to produce seafood: catching fish in the wild or farming aquatic organisms through aquaculture. Aquaculture includes not only fish farming, but also the cultivation of shellfish, crustaceans, and aquatic plants such as seaweed.

Over the last few decades, aquaculture has expanded rapidly. As the chart shows, it grew from a very small share of global seafood production in the 1960s to become the larger source of seafood production by 2022, overtaking capture fisheries in the 2010s.

This shift is important because it has helped reduce some of the pressure on wild fish stocks. If rising global demand for seafood had been met only through wild capture, the pressure on marine ecosystems and overexploited fish populations would likely have been much greater.

Understanding this transition is essential for thinking about the future of the Blue Economy, where food production, sustainability, innovation, and marine conservation must go hand in hand.