Global seafood will lose its status as the only remaining food sector supplied chiefly by nature, as businesses pour investment into fish farming.

Farmed fish production is expanding 4 to 5 per cent a year, putting it on course to eclipse the output of wild fishing as soon as 2019, according to the UN Food and Agricultural Organization.

Appetite for fish in both developed and emerging markets is rising as more consumers choose it for health benefits. However volumes of fish caught in the wild has been stagnant since the early 1990s.

“This is similar to what took place in agriculture many centuries ago,” said Audun Lem, deputy-director of FAO’s fisheries and aquaculture department. “The overall impact on nutrition, food security and human development will be equally large.”

The trend has prompted a range of companies to muscle in to the farmed fish industry. Cargill, the leading US agricultural trader which handles everything from wheat to poultry, bought Norwegian fish feed supplier Ewos for €1.35bn two years ago, while Japanese conglomerate Mitsubishi paid $1.4bn for Cermaq, a Norwegian salmon producer.

Source: Financial Times // Original Article