Aquaculture Production and Value Chains in the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Purpose of Review The purpose of this review is to summarize the impacts of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on aquaculture input supply, production, distribution, and consumption. Recent Findings The COVID-19 pandemic–related lockdowns, social distancing, supply chain disruptions, and transport restrictions affect seafood production, distribution, marketing, and consumption. Recommendations are suggested to overcome these challenges. Summary The COVID-19 has led to disruption of aquaculture practices worldwide. The pandemic has adversely affected the aquaculture input supply of fish stocking and feeding, which, in turn, has impacted aquaculture production. Moreover, the COVID-19 crisis has had adverse effects on value addition to aquaculture products, through the restrictions of seafood marketing and exporting. Aquatic food production is vulnerable to the effects of COVID-19 outbreak; hence, adaptation strategies must be developed to cope with the challenges. There is an urgent need for collaboration among key stakeholders to rebuild the supply chain of inputs and fish marketing for sustainable aquaculture practices. International agencies, donors, government and non-governmental organizations, researchers, and policymakers need to develop policies to support aquaculture production and supply chains.

Assessing the Economic Impacts of COVID-19 on the Aquaculture and Fisheries Sectors in Relation to Food Security: A Critical Review

“…Although the number of fish stocks increased due to reduced disturbance in fishing grounds, the pandemic could not bring societal benefits as all fisheries sub-sectors were affected differently [42]. FAO (2020) and Ben et al ( 2021) almost said the same for Bangladeshi fishers, as noted above [4,13]. In another study, Sunny et al (2021) indicated that this pandemic affected the Bangladeshi fishers' livelihoods in multiple ways, with sudden illness, reduced income, complications for starting production and input collection, labor crises, transportation abstraction, complexity in the food supply, a weak value chain, low consumer demand, rising commodity prices, and creditor pressure being the primary drivers [39].…”

“…In such situations, non-governmental/governmental organizations in Bangladesh provided little to no support, further increasing the country's vulnerability to food insecurity [41]. However, certain fishers in Bangladesh adopted multilevel resilience strategies at the individual and household levels to cope with such situations, including diversifying their livelihood, creating more friendships, and networking among The COVID-19 pandemic also severely affected the global aquaculture supply chain by creating extended production delays (Figure 3) [4,13]. Additional problems faced in this sector included dilemmas regarding the transportation and selling of the final products at the market, shortage in production inputs, and difficulties obtaining credit from banks and other financial institutions, as reported for China [32].…”

“…COVID-19-related disruptions in the US aquaculture sector included loss of revenue, farm labor shortages, difficulty securing production inputs and services, and management challenges relating to the on-farm inventory of unsold fish and shellfish [34]. Similar challenges were faced by the aquaculture value chain actors in India and Bangladesh after experiencing lockdown and other preventive strategies [13][14][15]33,38,39,41,42]. In Bangladesh, fish feed input prices increased considerably [57].…”

“…However, global fish supply chain activities were severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and its subsequent measures, such as lockdowns, stay-at-home orders, social distancing, mass quarantine, stricter border controls, reduced air traffic, and transportation halting [11][12][13]. Hence, unsold/leftover fish were frequently reported in aquaculture farms, causing a financial burden to the producers who had to purchase additional fish feed to keep them alive [14].…”

The Water Hyacinth Reduces the Production Costs of Fish Feed during the Small-scale Tilapia Culture in Southern of Sinaloa, Mexico

“…Other paper report that the world tilapia production reached around 6 million tons in 2020, with a light grew (3.3 percent) than previous year, [2]. Despite the impact caused by the COVID-19 pandemic; China and Indonesia were the greatest producer in the world with1.8 million tons and 900,000 tons respectively in 2019 [3]. On the other hand, in 2010 the aquaculture production in Latin America, reached 1,883,134 tons, and the main producing countries were Chile (701,062 tons), Brazil (479,399 tons), Ecuador (271,919 tons), Mexico (126,240 tons), Peru (89,021 tons) and Colombia (80,367 tons) [4].…”