Farming fish in the sea will not nourish the world

Abstract

Recent literature on marine fish farming brands it as potentially compatible with sustainable resource use, conservation, and human nutrition goals, and aligns with the emerging policy discourse of ‘blue growth’. We advance a two-pronged critique. First, contemporary narratives tend to overstate marine finfish aquaculture’s potential to deliver food security and environmental sustainability. Second, they often align with efforts to enclose maritime space that could facilitate its allocation to extractive industries and conservation interests and exclude fishers. Policies and investments that seek to increase the availability and accessibility of affordable and sustainable farmed aquatic foods should focus on freshwater aquaculture.

Identifying Policy Best-Practices to Support the Contribution of Aquatic Foods to Food and Nutrition Security

“…Accessibility generally relates to affordability and physical access, as well sociocultural access and preferences [ 42 ]. Policies linking aquatic foods and FNS need to ensure the actions and indicators for increasing production are more clearly aligned with outcomes across the pillars of food security, including access and also consider broader food system issues [ 20 , 43 ].…”

“…Greater political commitment is needed to link fisheries and aquaculture with food security and public health [ 16 , 20 , 21 ]. In addition, there is a need to reframe policies to establish fish as food (in addition to a trade commodity, or an environmental governance challenge) [ 2 , 4 ] and to support the role of aquatic foods within a ‘food system’ to address concerns around health, sustainability and equity in food access, affordability and consumption [ 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 ]. Consideration of these broader food system elements is gaining traction in agricultural research and policy, although the role and contribution of aquatic foods in food systems has largely been ignored [ 24 , 25 ].…”

Ocean frontier assemblages: Critical insights from Canada's industrial salmon sector

“…Our analysis comes at a time when the marine environment is increasingly being presented not only as a new frontier of economic growth and development (OECD, 2016), but also as a vehicle for a ‘blue recovery’ in the wake of the COVID‐19 pandemic. The ocean‐as‐frontier, as Belton et al (2020) have recently argued, is facilitating the building of new alliances that aim to mobilize ocean resources and justify new rounds of extraction and commodity production (also see Satizábal et al, 2020). We share a concern with scholars focused on the political economy of the marine environment in how these discourses and material practices frame the ocean as a site of accumulation and growth that promises much in terms of contributing to global food security, sustainable jobs and thriving coastal communities, but is likely to fall far short of meeting these commitments (Belton et al, 2020; Childs & Hicks, 2019; Choi, 2017).…”

Characteristics and Dynamics of the Freshwater Fish Market in Chengdu, China

“…Additionally, many of the aquatic products commonly consumed in China that inspire concerns about the sustainability of capture fisheries are marine (e.g., sea cucumbers, shark fin, groupers, many types of shellfish). This means that the freshwater fish market has generated less attention from economic and environmental sustainability perspectives, mirroring broader patterns documented in the literature for the 'forgotten' inland [freshwater] fisheries (Cooke et al, 2016;Funge-Smith and Bennett, 2019), of freshwater aquaculture (Belton et al, 2020), and of seafood trade more generally (Belton and Bush, 2014).…”