Recognize fish as food in policy discourse and development funding

Abstract

The international development community is off-track from meeting targets for alleviating global malnutrition. Meanwhile, there is growing consensus across scientific disciplines that fish plays a crucial role in food and nutrition security. However, this ‘fish as food’ perspective has yet to translate into policy and development funding priorities. We argue that the traditional framing of fish as a natural resource emphasizes economic development and biodiversity conservation objectives, whereas situating fish within a food systems perspective can lead to innovative policies and investments that promote nutrition-sensitive and socially equitable capture fisheries and aquaculture. This paper highlights four pillars of research needs and policy directions toward this end. Ultimately, recognizing and working to enhance the role of fish in alleviating hunger and malnutrition can provide an additional long-term development incentive, beyond revenue generation and biodiversity conservation, for governments, international development organizations, and society more broadly to invest in the sustainability of capture fisheries and aquaculture.

Food for all: designing sustainable and secure future seafood systems

“…Companies and governments will work together to ensure fish remains affordable (Belton et al 2020 ) and there will be increased data availability to ensure that processed seafood products are nutritious and free from contaminants (Moxness Reksten et al 2020 ). Seafood will be a ubiquitous ingredient in malnutrition programs and school feeding programs and fishery and food policies will become well integrated (Bennett et al 2021 ). Food from the sea will continue to contribute to poverty eradication and provide meaningful work for millions of small-scale fishers and farmers (FAO 2015 ).…”

Fish Acquisition and Consumption in the African Great Lakes Region through a Food Environment Lens: A Scoping Review

“…This paper presents findings of a scoping study conducted to identify factors that mediate fish intake by populations in the AGLR. Whilst previous reviews have examined production trends, supply constraints and linkages with food and nutrition security [ 14 , 23 , 24 ], we have applied a food environment lens to collate and appraise primary evidence of the factors which promote or inhibit fish intake. Our review has sought to identify knowledge gaps to be addressed through future food systems research and to highlight findings of relevance to programmes, policies and investment decisions in the region.…”

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

“…A growing body of research highlights the important contribution of aquatic foods to food and nutrition security (FNS) and to sustaining healthy diets [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 ]. However, the contribution of wild-capture fisheries and aquaculture remains underrepresented in major FNS policy initiatives [ 3 , 7 ] and sustainable diet research [ 8 ].…”

“…However, aquatic foods have substantial potential to improve global diets, as a highly nutritious source of food that can have a lower environmental footprint than other animal-sourced proteins [ 13 , 14 ]. Aquatic foods contribute variously to the four pillars of food security—availability, access, utilisation and stability—in which nutrition is integral [ 15 ] and ongoing support is required to ensure their contribution in order to meet a range of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) [ 2 ].…”

“…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 ].…”