What's happening to our fish?

Here's an interesting article by Mark Bittman on the state of fisheries and wild fish:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/16/weeki ... ttman.html

This isn't a new take on the issue, but it got me thinking about a few things:

1. One solution he proposes it to broaden the types of fish we eat. Save the planet or not, this is good advice that I seem to need to relearn every year. Why try a new take on salmon when there are so many other fish that I haven't ever made at home?

2. Fish consumption has doubled in the last 35 years, but nearly all of this increase has come from developing countries. This is surprising because I thought Americans were eating more fish. Apparently not, but I'd still like to know if our flat level of consumption hides the fact that we've switched from canned tuna to fresh/frozen. I'd also like to know more about why fish consumption is rising in the developing world. Is this because people are getting richer, seafood is becoming relatively cheaper, or what?

3. A big claim in the piece is that fish farming is incredibly inefficient. It may very well be, but the facts that Bittman marshals don't speak to this issue. He writes that it takes more than one kg of "forage fish" to grow a kg of farmed fish. (Forage fish are things like herring, mackerel, anchovies and sardines). His claim seems to be that it would be more efficient to just eat the forage fish instead. This isn't really what "efficiency" means. Fish production is inefficient if it could be done cheaper than what it currently is. So, could we raise 1 kg of salmon for less cost than 3 kg of forage fish? He doesn't ask or answer this question.

This isn't to imply that we shouldn't eat the forage fish. That sounds like a great idea from a culinary perspective (and Bittman points out how popular these fish are in other countries).

4. Bittman brings up a lot of issues, but at the end of the day my take-away message is that if you want to do something about the problems he raises (and I'm not implying that you should!), you have to do two things: (1) Know where your fish comes from (wild, farmed, "sustainable", not "sustainable", etc.) and avoid buying "the bad stuff". (2) Be willing to pay more for "the good stuff".