ational commerce, and nations such as Iceland, 

 Peru, Japan, and Norway are heavily dependent on 

 exports of processed fish products for stability in 

 their balance of payments. For obvious reasons, 

 fishing activities and the related processing and 

 waterfront activities tend to be centered geograph- 

 ically in areas frequently deficient in other em- 

 ployment and investment opportunities. 



In brief, the relatively small numbers associated 

 with the world's marine fisheries, in comparison 

 with other sources of food, should not conceal the 

 fact that they are of very real economic impor- 

 tance, and efforts to improve the performance of 

 these industries, whether by increasing output, 

 reducing costs, or both, should be pursued vigor- 

 ously. 



B. Demand 



The primary determinants of the demand for 

 fish and shellfish are: (1) the level of personal 

 income per capita; (2) aggregate size and rate of 

 growth of the population; (3) tastes and prefer- 

 ences, including the influence of customs reflect- 

 ing religious practices and national origin; (4) price 

 and availability of closely substitutable products, 

 of which meat and polutry are the most impor- 

 tant. 



The strength of world demand for protein food 

 is evident in the rapid growfth in production of 

 marine seafoods during the past three decades. 

 Landings of fish and shellfish have been growing at 

 a rate of more than six per cent a year since the 

 end of World War II. As indicated in Figure 1, 



Year Landings 



Figure 1. Total world catch, 1950-67 (millions 

 of metric tons). Source: Data from Food and 

 Agriculture Organization of the United Na- 

 tions, Yearbook of Fishery Statistics, 1966 

 (1968). 



total landings have jumped from about 20 million 

 metric tons in 1950 to about 57 million tons in 

 1966, of which at least 50 million tons came from 

 marine sources. The areas of strongest demand 

 spread across the entire spectrum of marine 

 seafoods. Specialty processed fish and the more 

 exotic forms of fish and shellfish are among 

 the highest priced foods in the markets of the 

 developed countries, and demand for them con- 

 tinues to grow rapidly. At the other end of the 

 spectrum, demand for low priced fish, though 

 changing with respect to preferred forms of 

 preparation, continues to expand equally rapidly 

 in many of the less developed nations. A forecast 

 of world population growth would, accordingly, 

 provide a good indication of the minimum rate of 

 growth expected in demand for marine food 

 products. 



The internal structure of this growing demand 

 is of great interest in analyzing the nature of the 

 markets that are emerging for Uving products of 

 the sea. In the more highly developed nations, 

 there is a marked tendency for per capita 

 direct consumption of seafoods to level off. 

 This is, in general, an extension of the simple 

 physical fact that the total food consumed by man 

 is largely a function of the size of his body; as 

 incomes increase beyond the level at which ade- 

 quate caloric and nutritional need is assured, 

 consumer demand reflects more and more heavily 

 the desire for diversification and for processing 

 and marketing sources that make food products 

 more convenient to handle and prepare. 



The relative stability in per capita demand for 

 fish and shellfish for direct consumption in the 

 United States conceals wide variations among 

 species. In general, demandfor products of unusu- 

 ally good flavor and texture, such as fresh and 

 frozen salmon, shellfish, lake trout, and red 

 snapper is sensitive to rising real incomes and has 

 been very strong throughout the postwar period. 

 Similarly, demand for species used to produce 

 frozen sticks and portions and canned tuna, where 

 a high degree of consumer convenience has been 

 linked to effective merchandising programs, has 

 been good throughout the period. On the other 

 hand, there is a marked tendency for lower income 

 groups to shift away from cheaper fish, particu- 

 larly in the South and in coastal areas, toward 

 meat, poultry, and other preferred protein foods 

 as their economic lot improves. 



VII-8 



