In this chapter, we shall discuss some basic facts about the fishing industry. How has fish production developed in recent times? What is its role in the supply of food in the world? How has the composition of its products changed? What is the structure of the fishing industry like? Are world fisheries in a crisis in the sense that the food sources of the oceans are being depleted? How large is international trade in fish products and what is the main direction of its flow? Are tariffs a substantial hindrance to this trade?

By “fishing industry”, we primarily mean capture of fish in lakes or the oceans and the production of edible or useable material from these captures. But “fish is a fish is a fish”, as it was once put in the title of an academic paper (Gordon, Salvanes & Atkins 1994). Fish and other aquatic organisms are also farmed, fenced in by pens floating in the water or in ponds or tanks on land. The capture-based fishing industry meets aquaculture in the marketplace; both compete with similar products for the food budgets of consumers who often are indifferent to, or even ignorant about, where the goods they purchase come from: capture fisheries or aquaculture. When discussing fish markets and products and their trends it is difficult or impossible, and perhaps even pointless, to distinguish where the fish come from. Our discussion of fish production and trade will include farmed products, but otherwise this book is mainly concerned with the capture-based industry. Fish capture and fish farming are two very different activities; fish capture is essentially hunting with advanced equipment, but nevertheless subject to the vagaries of nature: variations in the weather and the availability or abundance of fish stocks. There is often high risk and uncertainty associated with this activity. Fish farming has much in common with agriculture: the fish stocks are kept under control; broods of fish are put out, fed and slaughtered according to plan. Even so, fish farming has its own risks as a result of the variability of nature: rough weather may destroy fish pens and put the fish on the run; poisonous algae may develop, and parasites have a field day in fish pens, as always when animals are crowded together and fed indiscriminately.