International Symposium On Marine And Fisheries Research

Fish is the main livelihood resources for many countries, particularly in developing countries. The recent FAO reported indicated that total number of worldwide fisher and fish farmer reach 58.272 million people, in which 84.16% living in Asia. Fish also contains rich source of high quality protein and nutrition and it is one of most frequently consumed animal protein in many countries. Therefore, fish contribute very important role to enhance food security, because fish could directly become a source of essential animal protein and indirectly as a main source of job and income to buy food.

Global fish production reaches 158 million tonnes in 2012, consist of 91.3 million tonnes from capture fisheries and 66.6 million tonnes from aquaculture (FAO, 2014). Aquaculture is the most rapidly growing industry, and its production growth has been able to surpass the production of meat. It is projected that in 2020 aquaculture production might reach up to 6 times the level of production in 1990 (The Economist, August 10, 2013). Of the current global fish production, 136.2 million tonnes of fish are used directly for human consumption and the rest for indirect uses such as for raw materials of fish feed and livestock. Indonesia is one of the key players in the global fisheries. For capture fisheries, Indonesia place second rank after China, and for aquaculture, Indonesia ranks fourth after China, India, and Vietnam.

The rapid increase in fish production is strongly related to the growing of global fish demand, due to the changing of the consumption pattern from red meat to white meat containing higher and more complete and healthier animal protein. Average world fish consumption continues to increase, from only 6 kg/capita in 1950, to 19.2 kg in 2012, and therefore the total fish consumption increased from 50 million tonnes at the beginning of 1960 to almost three times currently. In meanwhile, the net-export revenues of fishery products (exports less imports) continued to expand, from US$5 billion in 1985, to US $ 22 billion in 2005, and reached US $ 35.3 billion in 2012. The trade value of fishery commodities is much higher than other agriculture commodities such as coffee, rubber, cocoa, rice and meat and thus fish is the most market-oriented activities/products. Along with the increasing demand, fishery commodity prices also continued to increase, even beyond other agricultural commodity prices (FAO Fish Price Index showed fish price raised from 90 in early 2002 to 160 in October 2013). As consequences, the rapidly growing of demand required the production capacity to fulfill fish for food and for other uses. Therefore, the sustainable production and consumption of fishery product need to be promoted. This symposium aims to discuss sustainable system of fishery production and consumption.