Preface

Recently, fish landings from natural resources have reduced drastically. At the same time the growing human population combined with an increased awareness in the nutritional value of fish has prompted further development of sea fishing technologies, methods of seafood preservation and transportation methods to cope with the growing demand of a human population that is set for rise from 6 billion to 8.5 billion by the year 2020.

Fish is an important component of food security, and it contributes up to 80% of animal protein intake, especially in developing countries. Therefore, as countries seek for alternatives to meet the market demand, aquaculture and mariculture have been identified as possible solutions to these problems.

The global production of fish is projected to rise by 1.5% annually through 2020, and two-thirds of the increase will come from aquaculture, which is expected to make up 41% of the global fish production by 2020 -up from 31% in the late 1990s . For instance, in 1998 aquaculture provided about 25% of the world fish supply compared to 8% in 1984.

Hence, aquaculture is playing a vital role in the provision of animal protein in the human diet. This book is one of the significant contributions from experts in relation to support global production of fish.

> **Z. A. Muchlisin, Ph.D**  Department of Aquaculture, Coodinatorate of Fisheries and Marine Sciences Syiah, Kuala University Indonesia

**Part 1** 

**Nutrition** 
