244 



been reproduced in many publications. Others, such as for gathering and hunt- 

 ing on huid, must be based upon judgment guided by scanty measurements. The 

 data for the United States are far better than those for the whole world, so 

 they are presented separately. Tonnages are expressed in wet weight or live 

 weight as usually reported, and dollar values are for the level of the fisherman, 

 farmer, or hunter; values at the retailer level would be much higher. 



Data for the gathering of seaweed were compiled by the Battelle Institute (1), 

 but the quantity and value of wild plants gathered from land is so poorly known 

 that only rough estimates by the writers can be given. Production of plants by 

 the more advanced stage of farming is better established. Essentially no farming 

 of the ocean takes place in the United States; almost all of it is in Japan, where 

 algae used largely for flavoring is grown on racks in broad bays near shore. Data 

 for the Japanese production is from the Battelle Institute (1) supplemented by 

 information obtained by Emery during a recent visit to Japan. 



TABLE 1.— TONNAGE AND DOLLAR VALUE OF HUMAN FOOD PRODUCED FROM OCEAN AND LAND DURING 1964. 

 THE U.S. POPULATION IN 1954 WAS 0.19 BILLION; THE POPULATION OF THE ENTIRE WORLD WAS 3.22 BILLION. 

 FIGURES IN PARENTHESES ARE LESS ACCURATE THAN THE OTHERS WHICH ARE BELIEVED TO BE ACCURATE 

 WITHIN ±25 PERCENT 



Tonnage (millions/years) Dollars (billions/year) 



Activity 



Plants: 



Gathering 



Farming 



Animals: 



Hunting 



Herding 



Minerals; Mining. 



Rather complete data on farm production in the United States and for the 

 entii'e world was compiled by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (2). The dollar 

 value for the United States farm income (Table 1) is also readily available from 

 the USD A and from current commodity prices, but that for the entire world had 

 to be computed on the basis of a price per ton somewhat lower than that for the 

 United States. 



Data for the hunting of animals in the ocean are fairly good, having been 

 compiled by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (3) 

 and interpreted by Chapman (4)- A total of 51.6 million tons of fish, mollusks, 

 crustaceans, and small mammals were taken commercially in 1964. After removal 

 of 16.4 million tons not used directly for human consumption and 6.6 million tons 

 of freshwater fish, the remainder is 28.6 million tons, of which only 1.5 million 

 tons were caught by the United States fishermen. To both the world and the 

 United States totals for commercial fishing must be added a small quantity repre- 

 senting products of saltwater sport fishing and other noncommercial fishing. 

 The totals are about 1.6 and 29 million tons, respectively. The tonnages given in 

 Table 1 are also expressed in dollars on the basis of an average price to the 

 fisherman of $200 per ton in the United States and .$150 per ton in the rest of the 

 world. Note that these prices are for only the high-grade fish that are used directly 

 for human consumption. 



Information about the quantity of animal food obtained by hunting on land 

 is as inadequate as that for plant food which is gathered on land. The Bureau 

 of Sport Fishing and Wildlife (5) compiled the number of deer, elk. and other 

 big game that were legally shot during 1964 in the United States. These num- 

 bers were converted to tons (1.52,000) on the basis of average weights of each kind 

 of game, and doubled to allow for the take by poaching. This tonnage was trebled 

 to include small game such as rabbits and ducks, figures for which are not avail- 

 able from the bureau. This last estimate is reasonable if the average bag of the 

 10 million small-game hunters was 10 pounds for each of their 128 million "rec- 

 reation days" (6). The total bag is then about 1 million tons, to which 0.3 million 

 tons must be added for freshwater fish (J/). The total value was computed on the 

 basis of $.500 per ton for mammals and $200 for fish — commercial prices for pork 

 and desirable marine fish. Had the tonnage been evaluated on the basis of the 

 $4 billion spent by sportsmen (6), the cost per ton would have been $3,000; ob- 



