August 06, 2021
Iranians have taken massively to fish and seafood and are now consuming 33 times as much per capita as they did in the 1960s.
The fascination with fish took off in the late 1980s, leveled off in the 1990s and took off again after 2008. Per capita consumption has doubled since 2008.
The huge turn to fish for food in Iran is one of the largest shifts toward fish in the world, according to data maintained by Our World In Data.
Iran is still far from consuming the most fish in the world. That honor goes easily to Iceland, where fish consumption per capita has long topped 90 kilos a year, far from Iran’s 13.3 kilos last year and its 0.4 kilos in the 1960s.
But nobody comes close to Iceland. The Number Two through Number Five consumers all gobble up 50-odd kilos a year Malaysia 58; Portugal 57; South Korea 55; and Norway 51. However, Iran easily outpaces Afghanistan, which has the lowest per capital consumption of fish at just one-quarter of a kilo per year.
For comparison’s sake, fish consumption including seafood in Canada and the United States runs at 22 kilos a head.
Iran is a major fish producer in the region with trout, caviar and shrimp being the main exported products.
Over the past few years, Iran has set up cages for fish farming in the sea as well as in reservoirs behind dams.
The tiny and inland province of Chaharmahal va Bakhtiari in southwest Iran accounts for 40 percent of Iran’s fish output, according to the Financial Tribune. The Middle East’s biggest fish production unit is active in that province’s Shahr-e Kord, the mile-high city ranking first in breeding salmon.
