The importance of fishing. What are the most important factors you influence?
- Fishing plays a very important role in many countries, communities, and populations around the world, being in many of them the most relevant primary economic activity. In addition to being economically important, it is also important in terms of food, since fishing brings to our tables one of the best sources of protein that exist, whether it comes from the white or blue fisherman, the protein of fish is one of the most biologically valuable and healthy for our organism.
- This alimentary factor is the one that takes greater weight in the importance that the fishing can have in our society, be it of artisan form, industrial or fish raised in a fish farm, the contribution of fish to our diet makes it much richer and varied. Needless to say, fishing generates thousands of jobs either directly or indirectly, from the fisherman who catches the fish on the high seas, the workers in the fish markets where the fish is distributed, the transporters, fish shops, supermarkets and a long etcetera that completes the employment chain generated by fishing.
Commercial importance
- It is evident that commercial fishing plays an essential role in certain countries where its main source of income is commercial fishing, which is carried out in an artisanal manner, in contrast to industrial fishing, which is more typical of developed countries where they have the economic capacity to have fleets of highly prepared vessels equipped with the latest technological advances.
- Depending on which zone we are in, the regulations and legislation regarding fishing will be different, it is a factor to take into account, since the regularization of the fishing extraction is something very important at the level of maintaining the marine ecosystem in a healthy state since the most traditional fishing on a small scale is more respectful with the environment and less harmful to the seabed.
Per capita fish consumption in the world
Fisheries and their food importance
- If we talk about statistics, today around the world are consumed about 100 million tons of fish in a year, this consumption is at least 20% of the per capita intake of protein from animal origin. There is no doubt that these numbers are increasing in developing countries, especially where kilometers of coastline is long.
- In fact, in these coastal or island countries, fish consumption accounts for up to 50% of total animal protein. For example, in countries such as Japan, where the fishing industry is one of the largest in the world, its gastronomic culture is based on taking fish in multiple forms, whether raw, such as sushi, or other culinary ways of preparing it. It is true that according to the FAO, 97% of the world's fishermen come from developing countries (Asia or Africa), so the consumption of fish in these countries will be higher.
The importance of fishing as a sport
- Another important aspect of fishing is in its sport, the sport of fishing in certain countries is real madness, a passion for its practitioners, in fact in Russia, USA or UK, sport fishing moves hundreds of thousands of dollars in the sale of materials and fishing items varied.
- From different fishing rods made of carbon fiber, fishing reels with increasingly sophisticated technologies or thousands of models and types of lures with multiple variants of colors and shapes that make the equipment of each sports fisherman is unique and exclusive thanks to the many options that we can find in fishing shops.
- It is evident that this recreational and leisure activity is increasing and is no longer only practiced by amateurs of a certain age, but the youngest are throwing themselves into the competitions and tournaments of sport fishing that arise in greater numbers each year.