To feed the two billion extra people projected to live on earth in 2050, food production must rise by 60%. While nourishing an expanding global population will represent a major challenge for a world where almost 800 million go hungry every day, there is one food sector growing faster than the population – aquaculture and fisheries.
Oceans, seas and inland waters – almost three-quarters of the world’s surface –supply 17% of global animal proteins, and support the livelihoods of some 12% of the global population. Since the 1960s, fish consumption has virtually doubled, and today about three billion people receive 20% of their daily animal protein intake from fish, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations’s (FAO) The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture(pdf).
It is the rapid expansion of aquaculture – the farming of aquatic organisms including fish, molluscs, crustaceans and aquatic plants – that is driving growth in global fisheries production.
There can be little doubt that fish farming holds tremendous promise in responding to surging demand for food. Already supplying half of all fish consumed worldwide, aquaculture’s expansion can help improve the diets of people living in towns and cities as well as poor rural areas, where the presence of essential nutrients in food is often scarce.
Another important trend sees developing countries boosting their share to 54% of total fishery exports by value in 2012. Playing a critical role in local economies, 90% of fishers are small-scale, and women make up 15% of the workforce, a figure rising as high as 90% in secondary activities such as fish processing.
Storm clouds
Along with important contributions to global food and nutrition security and national economic growth, oceans and seas provide valuable ecosystem goods and services such as air, food and water. Every other breath a person takes originates from the ocean. And about 50% of carbon in the atmosphere that becomes bound in natural systems is cycled into the oceans and inland waters.
But as the fisheries and aquaculture sector develops around the world, harmful practices and poor management are endangering its long-term viability. Stresses caused by human activity on the oceans’ life support systems are now widely acknowledged to have reached unsustainable levels. Evidence points to over-exploitation of resources, pollution, degrading habitats, declining biodiversity, expansion of invasive species, climate change and acidification.
Poor governance, management and practices, including illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing and inefficient aquaculture operations, and labour abuses of fishing communities, continue to be major obstacles to achieving sustainability in the sector.
“The health of our planet as well as our own health and future food security all hinge on how we treat the blue world,” FAO director-general José Graziano da Silva says. “We need to ensure that environmental well-being is compatible with human well-being in order to make long-term sustainable prosperity a reality for all.”
Marrying conservation with sustainable use
Among the recently adopted UN sustainable development goals (SDGs) for the period 2016-2030, the standalone goal on oceans, SDG14, to “conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development”, will go a long way to ensure that the planet’s oceans and seas are managed sustainably with benefits shared more fairly.
SDG14 features 10 targets: to effectively regulate harvesting and to end overfishing, IUU fishing and destructive fishing practices; to address fisheries subsidies; to increase economic benefits from sustainable management of fisheries and aquaculture; and to provide access for small-scale artisanal fishers to marine resources and markets.
The broad approach to fisheries and oceans conservation of SDG14 ties in with FAO’s Blue Growth Initiative, which balances the sustainable and socio-economic management of natural aquatic resources with an emphasis on efficient resource use in capture fisheries and aquaculture, ecosystem services, trade, livelihoods, decent work and food systems.
“Through Blue Growth, FAO mobilises international support to provide incentives and assistance to developing countries so they can adapt and upscale implementation of Blue Growth strategies at the local, national, regional and global levels to secure political commitment and governance reform,” says Árni M. Mathiesen, head of FAO’s Fisheries and Aquaculture Department.
Improving farming practices
Most fish certification schemes today relate directly to the FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries with guidelines for eco-labelling in marine and inland capture fisheries and aquaculture certification. But FAO has gone one step further by launching the Global Sustainable Seafood Initiative, a benchmarking tool intended to provide clearer sustainability criteria and greater transparency in certification schemes along the seafood value chain.
The tool is likely to help improve fishing and fish farming practices, trade and reduce fish waste and losses, particularly during harvesting and processing. At 35%, fish food losses are almost double that of meat products.
Fish is likely to feature more frequently on the menu of developing and developed nations alike, rising to the challenge of feeding over 9 billion people. But to truly harness the potential of the oceans, countries will need to embrace sustainable management approaches like Blue Growth(pdf) and hit targets laid out in the SDGs to prevent the buoyant fishing sector becoming fishy business.
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