Fishing industry
The fishing industry includes
any industry or activity concerned with taking, culturing, processing,
preserving, storing, transporting, marketing or selling fish or fish products.
It is defined by the Food and Agriculture Organization as including recreational, subsistence and commercial fishing, and the
harvesting, processing, and marketing sectors. The
commercial activity is aimed at the delivery of fish and other seafood products for human
consumption or as input factors in other industrial processes. Directly or
indirectly, the livelihood of over 500 million people in developing countries
depends on fisheries and aquaculture.
There are three principal industry sectors
·
The commercial sector: comprises enterprises
and individuals associated with wild-catch or aquaculture resources and the
various transformations of those resources into products for sale. It is also
referred to as the "seafood industry", although non-food items such
as pearls are included among its products.
·
The traditional sector: comprises enterprises
and individuals associated with fisheries resources from which aboriginal
people derive products in accordance with their traditions.
·
The recreational sector: comprises enterprises
and individuals associated for the purpose of recreation, sport or sustenance
with fisheries resources from which products are derived that are not for sale.
Commercial sector
The commercial sector of the fishing
industry comprises the following chain:
1.
Commercial fishing and fish farming which produce the
fish
2.
Fish processing which produce
the fish
products
3.
Marketing of the fish
products
World
production
Fish are harvested by commercial fishing and aquaculture.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the world harvest in 2005 consisted of 93.3 million tons captured by commercial fishing in wild fisheries, plus 48.1 million tons
produced by fish
farms.
In addition, 1.3 million tons of aquatic plants (seaweed etc.) were captured
in wild fisheries and 14.8 million tons were produced by aquaculture.[5] The number of
individual fish caught in the wild has been estimated at 0.97-2.7 trillion per
year (not counting fish farms or marine invertebrates).
Following is a table of the 2011 world
fishing industry harvest in tons by capture and by aquaculture.
Total (ton) |
Aquaculture (ton) |
Capture (ton) |
|
178,303,426 |
83,729,313 |
94,574,113 |
Total |
22,060,504 |
20,975,361 |
1,085,143 |
Aquatic plant |
156,202,922 |
62,753,952 |
93,488,970 |
Aquatic animal |
Commercial
fishing
The top producing countries were, in order,
the People's Republic of China (excluding Hong Kong and Taiwan), Peru, Japan,the Unitedstates, Chile, Indonesia, Russia, India, Thailand, Norway and Iceland. Those countries
accounted for more than half of the world's production; China alone accounted
for a third of the world's production.
Fish
farming
Aquaculture is the cultivation of aquatic organisms.
Unlike fishing, aquaculture, also known
as aqua farming, is the cultivation of aquatic populations under controlled
conditions. Mari
culture refers
to aquaculture practiced in marine environments. Particular kinds of
aquaculture include alga culture (the production
of kelp/seaweed and other algae); fish farming; shrimp farming, shellfish farming, and
the growing of cultured
pearls.
Fish farming involves raising fish
commercially in tanks or enclosed pools, usually for food. Fish species raised
by fish farms include carp, salmon, tilapia, catfish and cod. Increasing demands
on wild fisheries by commercial fishing
operations have caused widespread overfishing. Fish farming offers an
alternative solution to the increasing market demand for fish and fish protein.
Fish
processing
Fish processing is the processing of fish
delivered by commercial fisheries and fish farms. The larger fish processing
companies have their own fishing fleets and independent fisheries. The products
of the industry are usually sold wholesale to grocery chains or to
intermediaries.
Fish processing can be subdivided into two
categories: fish handling (the initial processing of raw fish) and fish
products manufacturing. Aspects of fish processing occur on fishing vessels, fish processing vessels, and at fish processing plants.
Another natural subdivision is into primary
processing involved in the filleting and freezing of fresh fish for onward
distribution to fresh fish retail and catering outlets, and the secondary
processing that produces chilled, frozen and canned products for the retail and
catering trades.
Fish
products
Fisheries are estimated to currently
provide 16% of the world population's protein. The flesh of many fish is
primarily valued as a source of food; there are many edible species of fish. Other
marine life taken as food includes shellfish, crustaceans,sea cucumber, jellyfish and roe.
Fish and other marine life are also be used
for many other uses: pearls and mother-of-pearl, sharkskin and rayskin. Sea horses, star fish, sea urchins and sea cucumber are used in traditional Chinese medicine. Tyrian purple is a pigment made from
marine snails, sepia is a pigment made
from the inky secretions of cuttlefish. Fish glue has long been
valued for its use in all manner of products. Isinglass is used for
the clarification of wine and beer. Fish emulsion is a fertilizer emulsion that is produced
from the fluid remains of fish processed for fish oil and fish meal.
In the industry the term seafood products is often used
instead of fish products.
Fish
marketing
Fish markets are marketplace used for the trade in and sale of fish
and other seafood. They can be dedicated
to wholesale trade between fishermen and fish merchants, or to the sale of
seafood to individual consumers, or to both. Retail fish
markets, a type of wet market, often sell street food as well.
Most shrimp are sold frozen and
are marketed in different categories.[9] The live food fish trade is a global system
that links fishing communities with markets.
Traditional sector
The traditional fishing industry, or
artisan fishing, are terms used to describe small scale commercial or subsistence fishing practices,
particularly using traditional techniques such as rod and tackle, arrows and
harpoons, throw nets and drag nets, etc. It does not usually cover the concept
of fishing for sport, and might be used when talking about the pressures
between large scale modern commercial fishing practices and traditional
methods, or when aid programs are targeted specifically at fishing at or near
subsistence levels.
Recreational sector
The recreational fishing industry consists
of enterprises such as the manufacture and retailing of fishing tackle and apparel, the
payment of license fees to regulatory authorities, fishing books and magazines,
the design and building of recreational fishing boats, and the provision of
accommodation, fishing boats for charter, and guided fishing adventures.
International problems
The ocean covers 71% of the earth's surface
and 80% of the value of exploited marine resources are attributed to the
fishing industry. The fishing industry has provoked various international
disputes as wild fish capture rose to a peak about the turn of the century, and
has since started a gradual decline. Iceland, Japan, and Portugal are the
greatest consumers of seafood per capita in the world.
Problems
in the Americas
Chile and Peru are countries with
high fish consumption, and therefore had troubles regarding fish industry. In
1947, Chile and Peru first adopted the 200 nautical miles of Exclusive Economic Zone for their shore,
and in 1982, UN formally adopted
this term. In 2000s, Chile and Peru suffered serious fish crisis because of
excessive fishing and lack of proper regulations, and now political power play
in the area is rekindled.[11] From the late 1950s,
offshore bottom trawlers began exploiting the deeper part, leading to a large
catch increase and a strong decline in the underlying biomass. The stock
collapsed to extremely low levels in the early 1990s and this is a well-known
example of non-excludable, non-rivalrous public good in economics,
causing free-rider problems.
Problems
in Europe
Iceland is one of the
largest consumers in the world and in 1972, a dispute occurred between UK and Iceland because
of Iceland’s announcement of Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) to reduce
overfishing. This dispute is called the Cod War, direct confrontations between
Icelandic patrol vessels and British warships. Nowadays in Europe in general,
countries are searching for a way to recover fishing industry. Overfishing
of EU fisheries is
costing 3.2 billion euros a year and 100,000 jobs according to a report. So
Europe is constantly looking for some collective actions to prevent
overfishing.
Problems
in Asia
Japan, China and Korea are some of the
greatest consumers of fish, and have some disputes over Exclusive Economic Zone. In 2011, due to a
serious earthquake, the nuclear power facility in Fukushima was damaged. Ever since, huge amount
of contaminated water leaked and is entering the oceans. Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) admitted
that around 300 tons of highly radioactive water had leaked from a storage tank
on the site. In the Kuroshio Current, the sea near Fukushima,
about 11 countries catch fish. Not only the surrounding countries such as
Japan, Korea and China, but also the countries like Ukraine, Spain and Russia have boats in the
Kuroshio Current. In September 2013, South Korea banned all fish
imports from eight Japanese prefectures, concerning radioactive water leak from
the Fukushima nuclear plant.[12]