From NOAA Fishnews:
The average American ate 16.3 pounds of fish and shellfish in 2007, a one percent decline from the 2006 consumption figures of 16.5 pounds, according to a study by NOAA Fisheries Service. Americans consumed a total of 4.908 billion pounds of seafood in 2007, ...
The nation imports about 84 percent of its seafood, a steadily increasing proportion. Imports accounted for only 63 percent of U.S. seafood just a decade ago. ... At least half of the seafood imported to the U.S. is farmed. Aquaculture production in the rest of the world has expanded dramatically in the last 30 years and now supplies half of the world seafood demand, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. America’s aquaculture industry, though vibrant and diverse, currently meets only 5 to 7 percent of U.S. demand for seafood. Most of that is catfish. Marine products such as U.S. farmed oysters, clams, mussels and salmon supplies 1.5 percent of American seafood demand.
Using an unpublished estimate of the consumer surplus per seafood meal (CS = $20) and assuming 0.5 pounds per meal, I declare that the economic value of seafood consumption in the U.S. in 2007 was $196 billion dollars.
