Fish, Food, And Hunger

The Potential Of Fisheries For Alleviating Malnutrition

George Kent

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780367013912
• eBook ISBN: 9780429712845
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book provides descriptive information on fisheries and nutrition, and outlines actions that could be taken to enhance the contribution of fisheries to the alleviation of malnutrition. It derives generalizations regarding the evaluation and design of fisheries projects and fisheries policies..

Part 1
Fish and Nutrition

Chapter 1
Introduction

Many observers have suggested that the sea is a bountiful storehouse of food which could be used to help end hunger in the world.¹ The possibilities have sometimes been exaggerated, but there is no doubt that fish and other seafood could be used more effectively. The purpose of this study is to examine ways in which policies might be modified so that fisheries could make a greater contribution to the alleviation of malnutrition.

Background

In 1975 a meeting on Expanding the Utilization of Marine Resources for Human Consumption was sponsored by the Norwegian Agency for International Development (NORAD). Another meeting sponsored by NORAD and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) held in Malaysia in 1982 explored ways in which fuller use might be made of fishery products in developing countries.² Then an Expert Consultation on the Role of Fish and Fisheries in World Nutrition, organized by the government of Norway and sponsored by the FAO was held in Oslo in July 1983. I was invited to that meeting because my 1980 book on The Politics of Pacific Islands Fisheries included a chapter on nutritional aspects of fisheries. I was particularly pleased because, although my hosts had not known it, at the time I was writing The Political Economy of Hunger: The Silent Holocaust, which came out in 1984.

The core question at the 1983 Oslo meeting was “How can fisheries be managed and developed to be more effective in alleviating malnutrition?” Many possibilities were outlined, including actions by national governments, fishing communities, producers, research agencies, food assistance agencies, and development agencies. The consultation recommended that the role of fisheries in alleviating undernutrition be proposed as a specific action program for fisheries development at the upcoming World Fisheries Conference.³ In October 1983 the FAO’s Committee on Fisheries supported this recommendation and incorporated it into the Draft Strategy which was prepared for consideration by the FAO World Conference on Fisheries Management and Development held in the summer of 1984.⁴ That conference endorsed the “Action Programme on the Promotion of the Role of Fisheries in Alleviating Undernutrition” without dissent.⁵ The FAO’s Fisheries Department is responsible for the implementation of the program, and cooperates closely with the FAO’s Food Policy and Nutrition Division and the FAO/UN World Food Programme.

In the summer of 1984 I undertook a consultancy with the Fishery Industries Division of FAO to provide background on the major policy issues. This work resulted in a study on existing and potential linkages between national fisheries policies and national nutritional policies, with the Philippines and Thailand as the specific cases under examination.⁶ The study reviewed their fisheries and nutrition situations and suggested ways in which policies in these countries might be reoriented to make a better contribution to the alleviation of undernutrition. With the support of the FAO, I did follow-up work directly with Thailand’s Department of Fisheries in the summer of 1985. I prepared another paper on fisheries-nutrition linkages for an FAO-supported conference held in New Delhi in November 1985 and did follow-up work in India in the summer of 1986. These, together with several other studies I did on the theme, provided much of the material from which this book was prepared.

Scope

Fishery products are taken to include finfish and shellfish and the many different food products which can be derived from them. These products can be used to alleviate malnutrition either directly, through their consumption value, or indirectly, through their commodity value. Fishing people who sell their catch to buy other foods use the fish only indirectly for their personal nutrition; for them, the nutritive character of the product they sell is only incidental. In this study the focus is on the use of fish for its direct consumption value, not its commodity value.

Programs for the alleviation of malnutrition might be considered for several different kinds of problematic situations. First, it might be projected that in the long run the supply of particular foods will not grow fast enough to keep up with the demand, resulting in serious shortfalls.⁷ Second, policymakers might be concerned with the possibility of famine, that is, episodic and possibly surprising shortfalls in food supplies which threaten immediate and severe dislocations.⁸ Third, programs might be designed to respond to problems of chronic malnutrition, particularly the widespread, continuing malnutrition which affects substantial portions of the populations of many developing countries. This study addresses only the third of these possibilities.

Although others can be malnourished as well, the focus here is on the poor as the socioeconomic group most vulnerable to malnutrition.

This study focuses on a few selected countries and regions, but the intention is to provide background information and guidelines which would be useful anywhere there is some potential for using fisheries products to help in alleviating malnutrition.

Part 1 provides basic descriptive information on fisheries and on nutrition, and categorically outlines actions that could be taken to enhance the contribution of fisheries to the alleviation of malnutrition. Concrete applications of these ideas are surveyed on a national and regional basis in Part 2. Part 3 derives generalizations regarding the evaluation and design of both fisheries projects and fisheries policies.

Notes

1. Frederick W. Bell, Food from the Sea: The Economics and Politics of Ocean Fisheries (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1978); Clarence P. Idyll, The Sea Against Hunger: Harvesting the Oceans to Feed a Hungry World, Revised edition (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1978); Claudia Carr and James Carr, “World Hunger: A Solution from the Sea?” Environment, Vol. 22, No. 1 (January 1980), p. 3.

2. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Fishery Products and the Consumer in Developing Countries, FAO Fisheries Report No. 271 (Rome: FAO, 1982).

3. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, The Potential of Fisheries in Alleviating Undernutrition: Report of the Discussions and Conclusions of an Expert Consultation on the Role of Fish and Fisheries in World Nutrition (Rome: FAO, 1983).

4. FAO World Conference on Fisheries Management and Development, Draft Strategy for Fisheries Management and Development and Associated Programs of Action (Rome: FAO, 1984).

5. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Report of the FAO World Conference on fisheries Management and Development, Rome 27 June to 6 July 1984 (Rome: FAO, 1984), pp. 50-52.

6. George Kent, National Fisheries Policies and the Alleviation of Malnutrition in the Philippines and Thailand, FAO Fisheries Circular No. 777 (Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 1984).

7. M. A. Robinson, Prospects for World Fisheries to 2000 (Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 1982).

8. This was the focus of the FAO Workshop on National Preparedness for Acute and Large-Scale Food Shortages in Asia and the Pacific, Bangkok, 2 6 May 1983 (Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 1983).

Chapter 2
Fish in the World Food System

Patterns of Fish Consumption

About 80 million tons of fish are produced (caught or cultured) globally each year. Almost 12 percent of this total comes from inland waters, while the rest is marine fish. Developed countries produce about 51 percent of the world catch while developing countries produce about 49 percent.

Although production is divided evenly between developed and developing countries, the consumption pattern is very different. As Frederick Bell observed, “the major consumers are affluent, not developing countries.”¹ The pattern may be seen in Table 2.1. These data refer to total supplies of fish products for any given country, comprised of its production, plus its imports, minus its exports. Direct use refers to direct human consumption, while indirect use refers primarily to the use of fish as feed for livestock. About 27 percent of world production is used for fish meal, most of which is used as feed for pigs and poultry. As the table shows, the developed countries together use a bit more than half the world’s fish.

The developed countries taken together have only about a third of the population of the less developed countries. Thus the differences in their consumption levels are much more marked when per capita measures are used. Table 2.1 shows that on a per capita basis people in developed countries u...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• CONTENTS
• PART 1 FISH AND NUTRITION
• PART 2 NATIONAL AND REGIONAL CASE STUDIES
• PART 3 GUIDELINES
• Bibliography