The Fishmeal Revolution

The Industrialization of the Humboldt Current Ecosystem

Kristin A. Wintersteen

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9780520379626
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9780520976825
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Latin American & Caribbean History
• Index: History

Off the Pacific coast of South America, nutrients mingle with cool waters rising from the ocean’s depths, creating one of the world’s most productive marine ecosystems: the Humboldt Current. When the region’s teeming populations of fish were converted into a key ingredient in animal feed—fishmeal—it fueled the revolution in chicken, hog, and fish farming that swept the United States and northern Europe after World War II.

The Fishmeal Revolution explores industrialization along the Peru-Chile coast as fishmeal producers pulverized and exported unprecedented volumes of marine proteins to satisfy the growing taste for meat among affluent consumers in the Global North. A relentless drive to maximize profits from the sea occurred at the same time that Peru and Chile grappled with the challenge of environmental uncertainty and its potentially devastating impact. In this exciting new book, Kristin A. Wintersteen offers an important history and critique of the science and policy that shaped the global food industry.

Table of contents

• Subvention
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations and Acronyms
• Introduction
• 1  •  A Deep History of the Humboldt Current Ecosystem
• 2  •  The New Industrial Ecology of Animal Farming in the Atlantic and Pacific Worlds, 1840–1930
• 3  •  Protein from the Sea: The “Nutrition Problem” and the Industrialization of Fishing in Chile and Peru
• 4  •  The Golden Anchoveta: The Making of the World’s Largest Single-Species Fishery in Chimbote, Peru
• 5  •  States of Uncertainty: Science, Policy, and the Bio-economics of Peru’s 1972 Fishmeal Collapse
• 6  •  The Translocal History of Industrial Fisheries in Iquique and Talcahuano, Chile
• Conclusion
• Appendix A. Glossary of Marine Species
• Appendix B. Diagram of Humboldt Current Trophic Web
• Appendix C. Map of Major Current Systems of Eastern and Central Pacific Ocean
• Appendix D. Map of World Fisheries Management Zones
• Appendix E. Graph of World Fisheries Landings and ENSO Events, 1950–2014
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index