Fish Farming

Fish farming, or pisciculture, is the commercial breeding of fish for food in tanks or artificial enclosures such as ponds, a particular type of aquaculture, the controlled cultivation and harvesting of aquatic animals including fish, crustaceans and molluscs. The most important species raised worldwide are carp, catfish, salmon and tilapia, and China alone provides most of the world's farmed fish production. Rising demand for fish protein and the depletion of wild fisheries have driven the practice's growth, and by 2016 more than half of all seafood came from aquaculture rather than wild catch, though farming carnivorous fish such as salmon does not always reduce pressure on wild stocks since they are typically fed fishmeal and fish oil drawn from wild forage fish. The practice also carries concerns of its own, including water pollution, the spread of disease and parasites to wild populations, and welfare problems linked to overcrowded stock.