Bangladesh has further consolidated its position as the world’s third largest producer of fish from inland open waters, while India has topped the ranking by toppling China for the first time in four decades.
According to the 2022 edition of the State of the World Fisheries and Aquaculture report (SOFIA 2022) of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, Bangladesh saw 1.25 million tons of capture fish production in 2020, which was 11% of the total global figure, compared to 16% by India and 13% by China.
FAO’s biennial flagship report, SOFIA 2022, found that despite the Covid-19 pandemic-induced difficulties, Bangladesh’s capture fish production had increased by 30,000 tons – from 1.22 million tons in 2018 to 1.25 million tons in 2020 – as the country further consolidated its ranking as the third largest producer of capture fish in the world.
Bangladesh has held this position since 2017. Previously it was fifth in the global capture fish production ranking.
Dhaka TribuneWith production to the tune of 2.6 million tons, Bangladesh also kept its position firm as the world’s fifth largest producer of aquaculture in 2020, after China (50 million tons), India (9 million tons), Indonesia (5 million tons) and Vietnam (4.6 million tons). Aquaculture commonly means farming fish and other aquatic animals in a controlled environment as opposed to fish produced in rivers and other inland open-water sources.
The latest edition of SOFIA was launched by FAO Director General Qu Dongyu in Lisbon, Portugal, on the sidelines of the UN Ocean Conference co-hosted by Portugal and Kenya on June 27- July 1.
While presenting the major features of SOFIA 2022, FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Policy and Resources Division Director Manuel Barange said thanks to a sustained growth in global fish production over the past several decades, per capita fish consumption had witnessed a more than twofold increase, from less than 10kg in the 1960s to over 20kg now.
SOFIA 2022 states that Bangladesh is among the several major producing countries – which include India, Myanmar and Uganda – that have driven the global surge in inland water catches.
FAO projects a further 15% growth in global aquatic food production by 2030. It says China, Norway, Vietnam, Chile and India are the top 5 exporters of aquatic food in the world.
Other rankings
While Bangladesh continues to do well in both inland water capture fish production and aquaculture production, its position in marine capture fish production is rather weak.
Dhaka TribuneWith 670,000 tons of annual marine capture fish production, Bangladesh ranks 25th in this highly potential category. In fact, it is one area where Bangladesh’s status has stayed somewhat stagnant over the past three decades with its production hovering between just 610,000 tons and 670,000 tons.
Bangladesh ranks 10th when all captures are combined (inland and marine). China, Indonesia, Peru, India, Russia, US, Vietnam, Japan and Norway are the nine countries ahead of Bangladesh.
Globally in 2019, aquatic food accounted for about 17% of animal proteins and 7% of all proteins. For 3.3 billion people aquatic food provides at least 20% of the average per capita intake of animal protein. In Cambodia, Sierra Leone, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Ghana, Mozambique and some small island developing states, aquatic food accounts for half or more of the total animal-protein intake, according to SOFIA 2022.
The Bangladesh government’s official statistics show that people in the country meet 60% of their animal-protein needs from fish.
India dethrones China
For the first time since the mid-1980s, China was not the top producer of inland water catches in 2020, as the highest amount of catches were reported by India at 1.8 million tons.
While China continues to be one of the largest producers of inland water capture fish, reported catches have decreased by over 33% – from 2.2 million tons in 2017 to 1.5 million tons in 2020.
This significant decrease is the result of recently introduced policies by China’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs — most notably a ten-year fishing ban in the waters of the Yangtze River — which aim for conservation of living aquatic resources, with the underlying rationale that improvements in and expansion of inland aquaculture and culture-based fisheries can meet the increased demand for aquatic food arising from the reduction in catches from inland capture fisheries.
Between 2018 and 2020, China’s inland capture fish production dropped significantly – from 1.96 million tons to 1.46 million tons – while in India it increased from 1.7 million tons to 1.8 million tons during the same period.
