The future of food from the sea

Christopher Costello (), Ling Cao (), Stefan Gelcich (), Miguel Á. Cisneros-Mata, Christopher M. Free, Halley E. Froehlich, Christopher D. Golden, Gakushi Ishimura, Jason Maier, Ilan Macadam-Somer, Tracey Mangin, Michael C. Melnychuk, Masanori Miyahara, Carryn L. de Moor, Rosamond Naylor, Linda Nøstbakken, Elena Ojea, Erin O’Reilly, Ana M. Parma, Andrew J. Plantinga, Shakuntala H. Thilsted and Jane Lubchenco
Additional contact information
Christopher Costello: University of California, Santa Barbara
Ling Cao: Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Stefan Gelcich: Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
Miguel Á. Cisneros-Mata: Instituto Nacional de Pesca y Acuacultura
Christopher M. Free: University of California, Santa Barbara
Halley E. Froehlich: University of California, Santa Barbara
Christopher D. Golden: Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health
Gakushi Ishimura: Iwate University
Jason Maier: University of California, Santa Barbara
Ilan Macadam-Somer: University of California, Santa Barbara
Tracey Mangin: University of California, Santa Barbara
Michael C. Melnychuk: University of Washington
Masanori Miyahara: Fisheries Research and Education Agency of Japan
Carryn L. de Moor: University of Cape Town
Rosamond Naylor: Stanford University
Elena Ojea: CIM-University of Vigo
Erin O’Reilly: University of California, Santa Barbara
Ana M. Parma: National Scientific and Technical Research Council of Argentina
Andrew J. Plantinga: University of California, Santa Barbara
Shakuntala H. Thilsted: WorldFish
Jane Lubchenco: Oregon State University

Nature, 2020, vol. 588, issue 7836, 95-100

Abstract: 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.

Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2616-y Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:588:y:2020:i:7836:d:10.1038_s41586-020-2616-y

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-2616-y

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().