48 SEA GRANT COLLEGES 



WHY DEVELOP FISHERIES? 



A legitimate first question to examine is why should any particular effort 

 be put into fishery development or any special effort into educating people for 

 that purpose. In 1850, the world catch offish and shellfish (excluding whales) 

 has been established to be between 1.5 to 2.0 million metric tons. By 1900, it 

 had increased to about 4 million tons; in 1930, to 10 million tons; in 1950, to 

 20.2 million tons; in 1960, to about 38.2 million tons; and in 1964, a little more 

 than 50 miillion tons. In the last several years the rate of increase in the ocean 

 fisheries has been at least three times as large as the rate of increase in the 

 world's human population. There is no indication that this is slacking off. Thus 

 fishery development on a world wide basis is moving along reasonably well with- 

 out the establishment of sea-grant colleges in the United States. 



The ashes of World War II had not grown cold before the United States de- 

 cided to employ a small portion of its gross national product to assist other 

 peoples and their countries to improve their economic and social conditions. 

 Although the Point Four, Marshall Plan, Foreign Aid and other names under 

 which this program has persisted over the years has had consistent and active 

 opposition from the time it was initiated, it has been the firm policy of every 

 President who has taken office, since Truman started it, that this program would 

 be supported in an important manner. This has been as true of Republican as 

 Democratic administrations, and President Johnson appears to be somewhat more 

 dedicated to this principle than most. Humanitarianism, disposal of farm sur- 

 pluses, building outlets for industrial manufacture, arming allies, and other 

 reasons are brought forward in support (or condemnation) of this principle and 

 program. The basic cause of enlightened self-interest probably hits closer to 

 the mark. If one people are prosperous and others are in serious want it is only 

 a matter of time, historically, until the hungry people take up their swords and 

 come seize from the fat people what they need. In any event the United States is 

 deeply committed to helping the developing world develop economically and so- 

 cially. 



Some years of experience at this sort of thing has taught the United States 

 government that people do not develop economically and socially very rapidly 

 until they are well enough fed to keep in reasonably normal physical and mental 

 health. The major health problem in the world presently turns out to be pro- 

 tein-malnutrition and this appears to be at present a root cause for slowness in 

 social and economic development in about two-thirds of the world. There is no 

 real shortage of calorie or protein food in the world, or its potentials for sup- 

 porting adequately a human population considerably larger than the present one. 

 The troubles are economic and social barriers to the equable distribution of what 

 is produced, or what can be produced, and one thus comes full circle on the 

 problem, ending up short of both chicken and eggs. 



It only requires about 60 million tons of protein per year to fill entirely 

 the needs of 3 billion people if it were distributed equably and in timely fashion. 

 Of this only about 24 million tons would need to be animal protein. The ocean is 

 naturally producing somewhere in the range of 400 million tons of animal pro- 

 tein per year of sizes and forms suitable for harvest and use by man. Of this, 

 about 10 million tons of animal protein per year is actually being harvested and 

 used per year (equating to the 50 million ton harvest now taken in terms of 

 round weight). Even this is a fair part of the 24 million ton per year global 

 need for animal protein if it were distributed in equable and timely fashion. 



But it is not distributed in this fashion. Most of the global increase in fish 

 production in recent years has gone into fishmeal for the feeding of poultry and 

 swine in the industrialized countries where the desire for the added protein 

 keeps growing rapidly, but the need is by no means urgent. The world produc- 

 tion of fishmeal increased from 590 thousand tons in 1948, to 3,500,000 tone in 

 1964, which equates with about 20 million tons of round weight fish, or about 40% 

 of total world fish catch in 1964. 



22 



