The numbers of aquatic animals reared for food is increasing as aquaculture rapidly expands. Our latest estimates of farmed finfish numbers slaughtered in 2022 total 130 billion^* globally (range 86-180 billion) and 670-1,100 million^* in the EU27 countries combined. Details are available by species and country. These extend our peer-reviewed estimates for 2019.

According to our study, published in a peer-reviewed paper in the journal Animal Welfare, global numbers of farmed finfishes killed for food annually increased nine-fold between 1990 and 2019, when they reached 120,000,000,000 or 120 billion (range 78-170 billion). The most numerous species include the pond loach, Nile tilapia and common carp.

Of these, 620-1,000 million were slaughtered in the EU27 countries combined, where the most numerous species include gilthead seabream, European seabass, rainbow trout and common carp.

The above estimates update and refine our earlier estimates. We previously estimated that 51-170 billion farmed fishes were slaughtered for food globally in 2017, of which 560-1,300 million were in the European Union, and 37-120 billion globally in 2010.

Numbers of living farmed fishes

It was earlier estimated that there are between 73 and 180 billion^* living farmed fishes (based on data for 2015). Details of the estimate are available in a spreadsheet here.

 

 

* rounded to 2 significant figures.