Fisheries and Policy Implications for Human Nutrition

Aquatic food loss and waste rate in the United States is half of earlier estimates

Food loss and waste (FLW) is a major challenge to food system sustainability, including aquatic foods. We investigated aquatic FLW in the food supply of the United States, the largest importer of aquatic food globally, using primary and secondary data and life cycle methodology. We show that there are significant differences in FLW among species, production technology, origin and stage of supply chain. We estimate total aquatic FLW was 22.7%, which is 43-55% lower than earlier estimates reported in the literature, illustrating the importance of applying a disaggregated approach. Production losses associated with imported food contribute over a quarter of total FLW, and addressing these losses requires multinational efforts to implement interventions along the supply chain. These findings inform prioritization of solutions-including areas of need for innovations, government incentives, policy change, infrastructure and equity.

Trends in abundance indices derived from commercial fisheries for priority marine stocks in the Azores

Large-scale assessments of fish and shellfish populations may be valuable for identifying the impacts of fishing pressure on stocks, but they are rarely possible due to a lack of long-term datasets. In this study, a two-part mixed-effect model for lognormal data was used to obtain historical abundance indices for 16 priority fish and shellfish stocks in the Azores region derived from catch per unit effort (kg per day at sea per vessel) and landing per unit effort (kg per landing per vessel). This data was obtained over the past 30 years under the EC Data Collection Framework and, in addition to information on effort and catch, included details about the fishing operation such as quarter, vessel length and fishing gear. This information was analysed to investigate how abundance indices changed over the years, verify if trends from different data sources were different and, if possible, relate these results to the population and fishery dynamics. The abundance indices derived from both datasets were generally in agreement with each other. Declining trends have been observed for some commercially important species, such as forkbeard Phycis phycis, European conger Conger conger, parrotfish Sparisoma cretense, red scorpionfish Scorpaena scrofa, offshore rockfish Pontinus kuhlii, common spiny lobster Palinurus elephas, splendid alfonsino Beryx splendens and alfonsino B. decadactylus, which is concerning because they are particularly slow-growing, long-lived and have low natural mortality, making them susceptible to overfishing. The results of this study are very important and should help future stock assessment and management initiatives.

Global Fisheries Science Documents Human Impacts on Oceans: The Sea Around Us Serves Civil Society in the Twenty-First Century

Fishing provides the world with an important component of its food supply, but it also negatively impacts the biodiversity of marine and freshwater ecosystems, especially when industrial fishing is involved. To mitigate these impacts, civil society needs access to fisheries data (i.e., catches and catch-derived indicators of these impacts). Such data, however, must be more comprehensive than the official fisheries statistics supplied to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) by its member countries, which shape public policy in spite of their deficiencies, notably underestimating small-scale fisheries. This article documents the creation, based on the geographically coarse FAO data, of a database and website (https://www.seaaroundus.org) that provides free reconstructed (i.e., corrected) catch data by ecosystem, country, species, gear type, commercial value, etc., to any interested person, along with catch-derived indicators from 1950 to the near present for the entire world.

Advanced Techniques for the Intelligent Diagnosis of Fish Diseases: A Review

Aquatic products, as essential sources of protein, have attracted considerable concern by producers and consumers. Precise fish disease prevention and treatment may provide not only healthy fish protein but also ecological and economic benefits. However, unlike intelligent two-dimensional diagnoses of plants and crops, one of the most serious challenges confronted in intelligent aquaculture diagnosis is its three-dimensional space. Expert systems have been applied to diagnose fish diseases in recent decades, allowing for restricted diagnosis of certain aquaculture. However, this method needs aquaculture professionals and specialists. In addition, diagnosis speed and efficiency are limited. Therefore, developing a new quick, automatic, and real-time diagnosis approach is very critical. The integration of image-processing and computer vision technology intelligently allows the diagnosis of fish diseases. This study comprehensively reviews image-processing technology and image-based fish disease detection methods, and analyzes the benefits and drawbacks of each diagnostic approach in different environments. Although it is widely acknowledged that there are many approaches for disease diagnosis and pathogen identification, some improvements in detection accuracy and speed are still needed. Constructing AR 3D images of fish diseases, standard and shared datasets, deep learning, and data fusion techniques will be helpful in improving the accuracy and speed of fish disease diagnosis.

Cancer and Ongoing Climate Change: Who Are the Most Affected?

Cancer has become the leading cause of premature death in many counties in recent decades. Previous studies showed plenty of evidence that control of modifiable risk factors would reduce the cancer burden. Since modifiable risk factors could be eliminated by changing the lifestyles of individuals, a greater uptake of modifiable risk factors is critical to reducing cancer burden and inequality in cancer survival. However, climate change will widen cancer inequities through its complex connections with modifiable risk factors. In this perspective, complex connections between climate change and cancer risks via modifiable risk factors, including abnormal temperature, UV, air pollution, natural disasters, food (diet), water, infections, and inefficient physical activities, have been summarized. The associations between climate change and modifiable risk factors have no doubt expanded the inequities. People who face overlapping modifiable risk factors, but who are unable to change or adapt, are at the highest risk in the climate change-cancer linkage. Though individual actions to avoid exposure to modifiable risk factors have been recommended, limited benefits would be achieved unless the nations strive to ensure the basic needs of the people. No choice makes avoiding exposure to risk factors an empty phrase. Thus, government actions should be taken to reduce the expanded inequities in cancer risks.

Trade and foreign fishing mediate global marine nutrient supply

SignificanceThe world produces enough food to nourish the global population, but inequitable distribution of food means many people remain at risk for undernutrition. Attainment of Sustainable Development Goal 2 relies on greater attention to distribution processes that match food qualities with dietary deficiencies. We explore this in the context of fisheries. Foreign fishing and international trade divert nutrients caught in marine fisheries from nutrient-insecure toward nutrient-secure nations. Where nutrient-insecure countries do benefit from foreign fishing and trade, there tends to be high vulnerability to future changes in nutrient flows arising from changes to foreign fishing and trade. This research highlights the need for greater transparency around distribution of fish and for nutrition security to be considered more centrally in development of trade agreements.

How Do Italian Consumers Value Sustainable Certifications on Fish?—An Explorative Analysis

Sustainable certifications communicate the environmental benefits of food products to consumers, and allow producers to differentiate their products from conventional ones. This study expands existing knowledge on fish consumers by assessing the importance of sustainable certifications in fish selection. A best–worst analysis was applied to a convenient sample of Italian household members responsible for food shopping, segmented with a latent class clustering model based on their socio-demographic characteristics, fish purchase behaviors, as well as attitudinal features. The results show that sustainable certifications were of interest to consumers, as more than 1 out of 10 respondents valued sustainable certifications in purchasing fish. Respondents interested in sustainable certifications on fish were medium-aged consumers, with high working status, well educated, as well as living in a medium-size household without children. These consumers were more interested in organic foods and had an interest in food nutritional information; they likely have a healthy holistic lifestyle, and may purchase organic food, including fish, to improve their health by increasing their physical well-being.

Fatty Acid Composition and Contents of Fish of Genus Salvelinus from Natural Ecosystems and Aquaculture

Fatty acids (FA) of muscle tissue of Salvelinus species and its forms, S. alpinus, S. boganidae, S. drjagini, and S. fontinalis, from six Russian lakes and two aquacultures, were analyzed. Considerable variations in FA compositions and contents were found, including contents of eicosapentaenoic and docosahexaenoic acids (EPA and DHA), which are important indicators of fish nutritive value for humans. As found, contents of EPA+DHA (mg·g⁻¹ wet weight) in muscle tissue of Salvelinus species and forms varied more than tenfold. These differences were supposed to be primarily determined by phylogenetic factors, rather than ecological factors, including food. Two species, S. boganidae and S. drjagini, had the highest EPA+DHA contents in their biomass and thereby could be recommended as promising species for aquaculture to obtain production with especially high nutritive value. Basing on revealed differences in FA composition of wild and farmed fish, levels of 15-17-BFA (branched fatty acids), 18:2NMI (non-methylene interrupted), 20:2NMI, 20:4n-3, and 22:4n-3 fatty acids were recommended for verifying trade label information of fish products on shelves, as the biomarkers to differentiate wild and farmed charr.

Unlocking the Potential of Fish to Improve Food and Nutrition Security in Sub-Saharan Africa

Approximately one-third of the global population suffering from chronic hunger are in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). In addition to high prevalence of chronic hunger, millions of people suffer from micronutrient deficiencies. Meanwhile, there is growing consensus across scientific disciplines concurring that fish plays a crucial role in improving food and nutrition security. Therefore, the present review aims to demonstrate the role of fish and the whole fisheries sector towards securing food and nutrition security in SSA by summarizing the existing literature. Fish is a treasure store of animal protein and essential micronutrients such as zinc, iodine, calcium, and vitamins, which are essential in human nutrition and have proven to help reduce the risks of both malnutrition and non-communicable diseases. Policymakers, development agencies, and society should recognize the role that the fisheries sector can play in combatting hunger and undernutrition, especially for the poor and marginalized people in SSA.

Drivers of Protein Consumption: A Cross-Country Analysis

Consumption and production of proteins derived from animals have more significant environmental and health impacts than proteins derived from plants. This raises concerns mainly in consideration of the predictable increased consumption of animal proteins at the expense of vegetal ones due to growing income, especially in developing countries. Animal protein consumption, and particularly meat consumption, seems to start to decrease at a high level of income, which may suggest that economic growth solves or attenuates the environmental and health problems of animal food consumption. To test this possibility, the relationship between per capita income and animal and vegetal protein consumption is explored. Using a cross-country regression for 142 countries in 2017, animal-based protein, meat protein, and vegetal-based protein consumption are specified as dependent variables. In addition to per capita income, other potential drivers of protein choices, including ecological, demographic and social factors are controlled for. Apart from income, which still seems to be the most important driver of any type of protein consumption, the results suggest that protein consumption from animal sources and meat sources have different determinants. Though there is actually some evidence of an inverted U-shaped relationship between per capita income and animal protein consumption, the peak is at such high levels as to make economic growth irrelevant to curb animal protein consumption.

Asian carp: A threat to American lakes, a feast on Chinese tables

Asian carp, which are widely distributed in Asia and Europe, are nutritious and popular with consumers. In China, Asian carp is a tasty dish and has been consumed for thousands of years. However, they are considered aggressive invasive species that threaten rivers, lakes, and indigenous species in the United States. Asian carp have proliferated greatly in the water basin of the Mississippi River and its tributaries, and they have caused severe ecological problems over the past 20 years. In recent years, several state governments along the Mississippi River have implemented assistance programs to eliminate invasive Asian carp, but these did not alleviate the threat. We conducted a survey to understand consumers' attitudes toward Asian carp in the United States, and related reports were reviewed to explore the possibility of Asian carp as food fish on American tables. Emphasis is placed on the farming history, functional characteristics, consumption preferences, and successful utilization methods for Asian carp in China. In addition, suggestions and possible utilization methods were proposed to improve the negative impression of Asian carp in the United States. Further research is needed to take full advantage of this huge excellent source of food or health supplements. This review provides ideas and directions for the use of Asian carp in the United States. We believe that through effective cooperation between China and the United States, the negative aspects of Asian carp in the United States could be diminished, and a mutually beneficial situation could be achieved.

Mercury concentrations in Baja California Sur fish: Dietary exposure assessment

Total mercury concentrations ([THg]) in muscle were determined in commercial finfish and elasmobranchs from Baja California Sur (BCS), Mexico to evaluate dietary Hg exposure for BCS communities, including the relationship of trophic ecology, length and mass with [THg] that might drive future consumption advice (e.g., recommend limited consumption of large fish for some species). The [THg] ranged from 0.06 to 528.02 μg kg^-1 ww in finfish and 17.68-848.26 μg kg^-1 ww in elasmobranchs. Relative to the consumption threshold set for predatory fish in Mexico, all species had a concentration below 1000 μg kg^-1 ww. As expected, 16 (4.02%) and 75 (18.84%) individual fish were above advisory thresholds of 500 and 200 μg kg^-1 ww, respectively. The hazard quotients (HQs) in most species were significantly <1.0, only banded guitarfish showed a significant median HQ > 1.0. Thus, the relative level of risk of high Hg exposure is low for most species.

Farming fish in the sea will not nourish the world

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.

Marine aquaculture is widely proposed as compatible with ocean sustainability, biodiversity conservation, and human nutrition goals. In this Perspective, Belton and colleagues dispute the empirical validity of such claims and contend that the potential of marine aquaculture has been much exaggerated.