July 1, 2026 — Rapid aquaculture growth has pushed farmed aquatic animal production to more than 100 million metric tons per year for the first time ever, boosting the trade value of all aquatic animal products almost to parity with the trade value of land-produced meat.
That’s according to the latest “The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture” (SOFIA) report from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The 2026 installment of the report, a biennial collection of data that outlines FAO’s vision for the fishing and aquaculture sectors, was released June 16 at the 11th Our Ocean Conference in Mombasa, Kenya.
“The [aquaculture] sector is evolving very rapidly,” Manuel Barange, director of the FAO’s Fisheries and Aquaculture Division, told Mongabay. “It’s now achieving levels that fisheries never did. And that is positive because there’s no doubt about it that we’re going to be 10 billion in just a couple or three decades. And everyone has a right to food.”
Connecting science and policy
SOFIA is “one of the most authoritative reports we have,” Paul Orina, director general of the Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute, said at a Mombasa press conference to launch the report. Its value lies in how it “connects science with policy,” he said.
The FAO has been giving policymakers, scientists and civil society a deep dive into the global fisheries and aquaculture sectors since 1995, with SOFIA 2026 bringing in data through 2024. The flagship report reviews FAO and broader U.N. statistics, including those FAO has been collecting on around 500 fish stocks globally since 1974.
It provides data, analysis and projections that inform decision-making internationally, and documents measurable progress of FAO’s Blue Transformation. This road map for meeting the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goal 14 (SDG 14), Life Below Water, by 2030, was launched in 2021. It aims to improve the social, economic and environmental sustainability of aquatic foods, and to feed more people more equitably despite growing challenges from climate change, pollution and biodiversity degradation.