2026-09-22 · percent of fish for human consumption

Half of fish we eat is farmed

Aquaculture passed wild catch — salmon and shrimp lead.

More than half the fish people eat is now farmed. Aquaculture supplies 56% of fish for human consumption, having passed wild capture at 44% — a crossover led by salmon and shrimp that is redrawing where the world's seafood comes from.

1 cell = 0.1 percent of fish for human consumption (0.1% of fish supply) · 1,000 cells

Context

Aquaculture's share of fish for human consumption has overtaken wild capture, 56% to 44%, according to FAO's State of World Fisheries data. Salmon and shrimp are among the leading farmed species driving the shift.

The crossover marks a structural turn in the global food system: growth in fish supply now comes from farms — ponds, sea cages and tanks — rather than from oceans and rivers, where wild catches are limited by what natural stocks can yield. That puts feed supply, farm practices and disease management at the center of seafood's future.

The aquaculture share comes from FAO, whose flagship State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2026 report estimates that 645 million people faced hunger in 2025 and that healthy diets remain unaffordable for about 2.7 billion people — context that raises the stakes of how the world produces fish protein.

FAO State of World Fisheries aquaculture share.