**8. Production and Consumption Statistics and Future Markets**

A senior FAO official [31,164] announced in 2017 during the High Level International Meeting on the Global Initiative "Blue Growth" for Latin America and the Caribbean, held in Mexico City, that "aquaculture worldwide is the productive sector with the greatest growth, exceeding as of 2011 the growth rates of bovine cattle". Thus, according to statistics from 2015, the world aquaculture production consisted in 51.9 Mt of fish (68%), 16.4 Mt of mollusks (21%), 7.4 Mt of crustaceans (10%), and 0.9 Mt of other aquatic animal species (1%). In particular, aquaculture in inland waters represents the most important sector of the production of edible organisms (43.6 Mt), which represents 59% of world production. The average annual growth rate of aquaculture production for 2001–2015 was 5.9%, significantly lower than in the last two decades of the 20th century, which stood at 10.8% and 9.5%, respectively. However, the contribution of aquaculture to production has been increasing steadily, reaching 45% in 2015 from 26% in 2000. If we focus on the world production of aquatic plants, mainly marine algae, reached 30.5 Mt in 2015. In this case the extractive processes are merely testimonial since 96% of the production (29.4 Mt) were obtained through aquaculture. Analyzing the distribution of aquatic production at the continental level and according to statistics for 2015, it would be headed by the Asian continent with a production of 68.4 Mtm. America and Europe would be at a distance with 3.3 Mtm and 3.0 Mtm. Africa produced the order of 1.8 and Oceania would scarcely contribute with 0.2 Mtm. The percentage of world production is shown in Figure 6. Figure 7 shows the weight of the top 10 world producers in aquaculture. Table 6 presents the evolution in Mtm of the production of the main producers in aquaculture in recent years.

**Figure 6.** (**a**) Distribution by continents of world aquiculture production (2017) (Source: FAO [31,164–166]) and (**b**) production of the 10 leading aquatic producers in the world (2017) (Source: FAO [31,164–166]).

**Figure 7.** Time evolution of world aquaculture algae production in millions of tons from 1990 to 2016 (source: FAO [31,164–166]).

**Table 6.** Production in aquaculture (Mtm) of main producers in 2015–2016 (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations [31,164]).


Access to statistics on seaweed production is largely dependent on annual publications of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), such as 'The State of World's Fisheries and Aquaculture.' The report published in 2018 only comprises production statistics for 2016 [164]. Table 6 shows the production in aquaculture (Mtm) of main producers in 2015–2016.

Meanwhile Figure 6 shows the distribution by continents of world aquiculture production (2017) (Source: FAO) and the production of the 10 leading aquatic producers in the world [31,164–166].

In 2016, aquaculture was the source of 96.5% of the total volume of 31.2 million tons, including wild-collected and farmed plants together. When it comes to aquatic plants cultivation, it mainly refers to seaweeds. Their cultivation almost triplicated in the last ten years. This fact supports the increase in the use of algae, although the demand still exceeds the supply offered by aquaculture. Conversely, the production of algae is decreasing (~5%) because of the collection of natural habitats [164]. Figure 7 shows the world evolution of cultivated aquatic plants.

Macroalgae have a large number of applications being the most relevant the production of human food products [74] and 15% is attributed to algae extracts, like hydrocolloids for their use in fertilizers, animal feeds and for its biological activities [167]. Nowadays, 221 species of algae are collected globally, from which 145 are for human nutrition and 101 for phycocolloid production. These include 125 rhodophytes, 64 phaeophytes and 32 chlorophytes [168]. From these, ten are largely cultivated, specially the brown ones *Laminaria japonica, Undaria pinnatifida* and the red ones, *Porphyra* spp., *Porphyra tenera, Eucheuma* spp., *Kappaphycus alvarezii* and *Gracilaria* spp. and *Gracilaria verrucosa* [169].

In 2010, 19 million tons of aquatic plants were produced in aquaculture globally, being sewed the largest percentage by far with 99.5% of the total. Of all the seaweed used in the world in 2010, 99.5% was prevenient from aquaculture, being a growing economy with a 7.7% per year increase since the 1970s [170]. The production of Algae is dominated by countries in East and Southeast Asia, reaching to 99.6% of quantity in 2010. China has the major portion of the production, contributing with approximately 58% of worldwide cultivated algae production by quantity. Indonesia, Philippines, South Korea, Japan, and North Korea are some of the other major seaweed producers. Japan has a high value of production, ranking in third position, due to its high-value of *Phorfira* production, accounting for 20% [165,166]. Almost all cultured species produced in East Asia are used for human consumption, with the exception of a small amount of Japanese brown algae that is also used as a source for the extraction of algin and iodine. Contrary, in Southeast Asia, *Eucheuma* algae are the principal cultivated species, used principally as a source for carrageenan obtaining. Aside Asia, a small fraction is also cultivated in Zanzibar (Tanzania) and Chile.

Nowadays, algae have several important uses in the food, cosmetic, and fertilizers industries and in the production of hydrocolloids, such as alginates and agar, being the last one the mainly current commercial exploitation. Furthermore, the production of bioactives and future commercial opportunities for seaweed compounds has increased and more than 15 000 different molecules have been isolated to date [170] hoping to be incorporated in human food, nutraceuticals, pharmaceuticals and animal stock feeds—but also fertilizers, biofuels, and soil conditioners. Opportunities for utilization aquafeeds, in food, feed, and nutraceuticals have presented as offering the most promising results in a reasonable period [171]. The production of seaweed globally has increased over the years as well has consequently the by-products and co-products derived from them.
