Global demand for seafood is increasing mainly because the human population is growing and dietary preferences are changing. In IB ESS Subtopic 4.3, this is core content for SL and HL students.
Why demand is rising
Demand refers to consumers’ willingness and ability to purchase seafood. Its growth results from interacting demographic, economic, cultural and technological factors.
| Factor | How it increases seafood demand |
|---|---|
| Population growth | More people require food, increasing total consumption of fish, molluscs, crustaceans and other aquatic organisms. |
| Changing dietary preferences | Some consumers choose more seafood because it is culturally important, considered nutritious or used as an alternative to terrestrial meat. |
| Rising incomes | Economic development can increase consumers’ purchasing power, making relatively expensive seafood more affordable. |
| Urbanization and global trade | Improved refrigeration, processing and transport make seafood available farther from its place of capture or production. |
| Expansion of aquaculture | Aquaculture, the farming of aquatic organisms, increases supply and makes seafood more consistently available. China’s large aquaculture industry illustrates this expansion. |
Rising demand creates pressure to increase supply through both capture fisheries and aquaculture. If harvest rates exceed population replacement rates, overexploitation may cause fish stocks to decline or fisheries to collapse, as occurred in the Grand Banks cod fishery off Canada.
Aquaculture can reduce pressure on some wild populations and support food security and economic development. However, it may also cause nutrient pollution, habitat loss, disease transmission and dependence on feed produced from wild fish.
A common misconception is that increasing seafood supply automatically makes consumption sustainable. Sustainability depends on harvest rates, stock monitoring, production methods, ecosystem impacts and equitable access to food and livelihoods.
Exam technique
For an explain question, identify population growth and changing dietary preferences, then show the causal link from increased demand to intensified harvesting or aquaculture. For higher-mark responses, connect demand to overfishing, management strategies and a named example rather than simply listing factors.
