Humanity has never produced or traded more seafood, and for the first time the fish raised on farms outweigh everything caught in the wild. That is the top line of the United Nations' new fisheries report — but read past the records and a stubborn sustainability problem comes into focus.
The Food and Agriculture Organization released its State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture (SOFIA 2026) this week at the 11th Our Ocean Conference in Mombasa, Kenya. Global fisheries and aquaculture production reached a record 235 million tonnes in 2024, including 195 million tonnes of aquatic animals, and trade in aquatic animal products climbed to about $184 billion — a figure the FAO says now rivals the global meat trade.
The defining change is the rise of farming. Aquaculture's output of aquatic animals passed 100 million tonnes for the first time, hitting roughly 103 million tonnes and supplying 53 percent of all aquatic animal production. Wild capture, by comparison, has flatlined for decades, sitting in the 86–94 million tonnes band since the late 1980s and producing about 92 million tonnes in 2024. Almost every tonne of growth this century has come from the farm, not the net.
"The report illustrates that, more than ever before, a healthy planet requires a healthy ocean and healthy inland waters," FAO Director-General QU Dongyu wrote in his foreword. "We need to ensure that all necessary efforts are made to reverse the decline in sustainability and secure the long-term potential of the sector, for generations to come."
Some of the catch figures jump out. Tuna landings set a record at 9.3 million tonnes. Peru's anchoveta surged 109 percent to top 5.0 million tonnes after a weak 2023, and inland fisheries reached a record 12.3 million tonnes.
The friction comes over overfishing — and even the statistics are contested. The FAO leads with a hopeful number: weighted by volume, 72.6 percent of 2023 landings came from biologically sustainable stocks, evidence that the largest fisheries are generally the best run. The Marine Stewardship Council, which co-hosted the launch, highlighted the gloomier reading — that by individual stock count, just 62.4 percent qualify as sustainable.
"The FAO's new data shows very clearly that overfishing continues to be a serious global problem," said Michael Marriott, the MSC's program director for Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. "When fisheries are well managed, they have healthier stocks, but when management is lacking, stocks suffer. The data shows us that sustainable management works but is not being universally applied."
Geography tells the same split story. Antarctic waters scored 100 percent sustainable and the Pacific ranked high, while the Mediterranean and Black Sea were worst at 45.7 percent, trailed closely by the Eastern Central Atlantic at 47.1 percent.
Who farms the fish is equally concentrated. Asia produces around 89 percent of the world's farmed aquatic animals, with China alone accounting for 56 percent. Europe is drifting the other way. Manuel Barange, the FAO's senior fisheries and aquaculture official, has cautioned that the region risks "becoming increasingly dependent on production developed in other regions" even while it remains the planet's biggest seafood importer at 41 percent of imports by value.
The benefits remain unevenly shared. Per-capita supply of aquatic animal food averaged 21.1 kg in 2023, yet Africa managed only 9.1 kg a head against Asia's 26.3 kg. And climate change shadows the forecasts: under high-emissions scenarios, exploitable fish biomass could drop more than 10 percent in several regions by 2050.
The FAO still expects production to grow, reaching 214 million tonnes by 2034. Whether those gains spread more fairly — and whether the worst-managed fisheries can claw back from overfishing — are the questions the record numbers leave unanswered.
