The future of food from the sea

Costello C 1 , Cao L 2 , Gelcich S 3 , Cisneros-Mata MÁ 4 , Free CM 5 , Froehlich HE 6 Show all authors , Golden CD 7 , Ishimura G 8 , Maier J 5 , Macadam-Somer I 5 , Mangin T 5 , Melnychuk MC 9 , Miyahara M 10 , de Moor CL 11 , Naylor R 12 , Nøstbakken L 13 , Ojea E 14 , O'Reilly E 5 , Parma AM 15 , Plantinga AJ 5 , Thilsted SH 16 , Lubchenco J 17

Affiliations 

  • 1 Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA. costello@bren.ucsb.edu
  • 2 School of Oceanography, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China. caoling@sjtu.edu.cn
  • 3 Center of Applied Ecology and Sustainability, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile. sgelcich@bio.puc.cl
  • 4 Instituto Nacional de Pesca y Acuacultura, Guaymas, Mexico
  • 5 Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA
  • 6 Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA
  • 7 Department of Nutrition, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA
  • 8 Faculty of Agriculture, Iwate University, Morioka, Japan
  • 9 School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
  • 10 Fisheries Research and Education Agency of Japan, Yokohama, Japan
  • 11 Marine Resource Assessment and Management (MARAM) Group, Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch, South Africa
  • 12 Department of Earth System Science, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
  • 13 Department of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics, Bergen, Norway
  • 14 Future Oceans Lab, CIM-University of Vigo, Vigo, Spain
  • 15 Center for the Study of Marine Systems, National Scientific and Technical Research Council of Argentina, Buenos Aires, Argentina
  • 16 WorldFish, Bayan Lepas, Malaysia
  • 17 Department of Integrative Biology, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA
Nature, 2020 12;588(7836):95-100.
PMID: 32814903 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-2616-y

Abstract

Global food demand is rising, and serious questions remain about whether supply can increase sustainably1. Land-based expansion is possible but may exacerbate climate change and biodiversity loss, and compromise the delivery of other ecosystem services2-6. As food from the sea represents only 17% of the current production of edible meat, we ask how much food we can expect the ocean to sustainably produce by 2050. Here we examine the main food-producing sectors in the ocean-wild fisheries, finfish mariculture and bivalve mariculture-to estimate 'sustainable supply curves' that account for ecological, economic, regulatory and technological constraints. We overlay these supply curves with demand scenarios to estimate future seafood production. We find that under our estimated demand shifts and supply scenarios (which account for policy reform and technology improvements), edible food from the sea could increase by 21-44 million tonnes by 2050, a 36-74% increase compared to current yields. This represents 12-25% of the estimated increase in all meat needed to feed 9.8 billion people by 2050. Increases in all three sectors are likely, but are most pronounced for mariculture. Whether these production potentials are realized sustainably will depend on factors such as policy reforms, technological innovation and the extent of future shifts in demand.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

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