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Abstract
ver the past seven decades, aquaculture production has grown the fastest among all livestock sectors, exceeding even the poultry sector, and has played a very significant role in meeting the protein needs of the population of developing countries. Global aquaculture production has grown continuously from 19.3 million tonnes in 1950 to 178.6 million tonnes in 2018, a virtually ninefold increase. Since the mid-1980s, the expansion of global aquaculture production has been enabled by the development of the aquaculture sector (especially in Asia, and within it China). 87.6% (156.4 million tonnes) of globally caught and farmed aquatic animals was sold for human consumption, with the average annual global consumption of aquatic animals being 20.2 kg/capita in 2018. Hungary's gross freshwater fish production has averaged 25-30 thousand tons over the past 20 years, and imports of aquatic animals have on average exceeded exports (primarily live commercial fish) by four times. The fish consumption of the domestic population (6.8 kg/capita) is significantly lower than the average value of EU member states (23.1 kg/capita), practically the lowest within the EU, but it is constantly increasing.