88 



Expansion of world fisheries production is a matter of advancing on 

 several fronts at once, for example, greater efficiency in harvesting 

 knoicn stocks. Here schools of thread herring are spotted hy aircraft i 

 the west coast of Florida. 



Fishing is important to our Nation in terms 

 both of providing Americans with a more 

 varied diet and of providing the basis for 

 profitable industrial activity. 



The Ocean's Food Potential 



The ultimate potential for food from the 

 sea remains unknown. The total annual world 

 harvest from the oceans is over 50 million 

 metric tons. Fish provide about 3 per cent of 

 man's direct protein consumption, but be- 

 cause fishmeal is fed to land animals, fish are 

 the basis of about 10 per cent of all animal- 

 protein food production. 



Expansion of world fisheries production is 

 a matter of advancing on several fronts at 

 once — improving the technical efficiency of 

 harvesting known stocks, locating and de- 

 fining new stocks, recasting the institutional 

 setting for fisheries management, developing 

 new end products from presently unused or 

 underutilized species, and opening up the 

 new field of aquaculture. 



If man's fishing activities continue to be 

 confined to the species now utilized, to the 

 locations now regarded as exploitable, and to 

 the equipment now available, it is unlikely 

 that production could be expanded much be- 

 yond 150 to 200 million metric tons — three to 

 four times present levels. But if man's activ- 

 ities were not so confined, far greater quan- 

 tities of useful, marketable products could be 

 harvested to meet the increasingly urgent 

 world demand for protein foods. 



It is, therefore, more realistic to expect total 

 annual production of marine food products 

 (exclusive of aquaculture) to grow to 400 to 

 500 million metric tons before expansion costs 

 become excessive. Even this estimate may 

 be too conservative if significant technologi- 

 cal breakthroughs are achieved in the ability 

 to detect, concentrate, and harvest fish on 

 the high seas and in the deep ocean. 



It is important to recognize that there are 

 biological limits on the productivity of indi- 



