The amount of farmed seafood we consume — as opposed to that taken wild from our waters — is soaring every year, making aquaculture an ever-more important source for many diets, and a response to overfishing. According to the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization, nearly 99 million tons of aquatic animals (fish, mollusks like oysters and mussels and crustaceans like prawns) were farmed around the world in 2023, five times more than three decades ago. Since 2022, the farming of aquatic animals has been steadily overtaking fishing around the world — but with large disparities from species to species.

Farmed production of fish, seaweed soaring. (2025, June 10). The Manila Times, p. B4.