Innovations in capture fisheries are an imperative for nutrition security in the developing world.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Hall SJ
PROVIDER: S-EPMC3666725 | biostudies-other | 2013 May
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other
Similar Datasets
Project description:This study tested the efficacy of a pond polyculture intervention with farming households in northern Zambia. Longitudinal data on fish consumption and the associated nutrient intake of households (N = 57) were collected over a six-month period (September 2019-March 2020). One group of people tested the intervention while another group that practiced monoculture tilapia farming, and a third group that did not practice aquaculture, acted as control groups. A similar quantity of fish was consumed on average; however, the associated nutrient intake differed, based on the quantity and type of species consumed, particularly for those who had access to pelagic small fish from capture fisheries. There was a decrease in fish consumption from December onward due to fisheries management restrictions. The ponds provided access to micronutrient-rich fish during this time. Pond polyculture can act as a complementary source of fish to capture fisheries that are subjected to seasonal controls, as well as to households that farm tilapia. Assessments of how aquatic foods can improve food and nutrition security often separate aquaculture and capture fisheries, failing to account for people who consume fish from diverse sources simultaneously. A nutrition-sensitive approach thus places food and nutrition security, and consumers, at the center of the analysis.
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Project description:While the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war threatens global nutrition security, the magnitude and extent of its impact remain underexamined. Here we show that, with the lowest level of war duration, severity, sanction, and countries involved, the direct and indirect impacts of the war and sanctions could newly place 67.3 million people (roughly equals the total population of France) in undernourishment and 316.7 million people (roughly equals the total population of Bangladesh and Russia) suffering from extreme national food insecurity. Approximately 95% of the affected population are from developing countries, highlighting the vulnerability of food supply in these countries. Both the undernourished population and its inequality across countries will substantially grow, if war duration and severity increase. If the war is prolonged to early 2024, future agricultural growth cannot fully offset the negative impacts, and global hunger will still very likely exacerbate. We conclude that targeted measures should be placed in developing countries and their vulnerable populations to reconstruct a just, healthy, and environmentally sustainable food system.Supplementary informationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s43621-022-00112-8.
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Project description:Food security remains a principal challenge in the developing tropics where communities rely heavily on marine-based protein. While some improvements in fisheries management have been made in these regions, a large fraction of coastal fisheries remain unmanaged, mismanaged, or use only crude input controls. These quasi-open-access conditions often lead to severe overfishing, depleted stocks, and compromised food security. A possible fishery management approach in these institution-poor settings is to implement fully protected marine protected areas (MPAs). Although the primary push for MPAs has been to solve the conservation problems that arise from mismanagement, MPAs can also benefit fisheries beyond their borders. The literature has not completely characterized how to design MPAs under diverse ecological and economic conditions when food security is the objective. We integrated four key biological and economic variables (i.e., fish population growth rate, fish mobility, fish price, and fishing cost) as well as an important aspect of reserve design (MPA size) into a general model and determined their combined influence on food security when MPAs are implemented in an open-access setting. We explicitly modeled open-access conditions that account for the behavioral response of fishers to the MPA; this approach is distinct from much of the literature that focuses on assumptions of "scorched earth" (i.e., severe over-fishing), optimized management, or an arbitrarily defined fishing mortality outside the MPA's boundaries. We found that the MPA size that optimizes catch depends strongly on economic variables. Large MPAs optimize catch for species heavily harvested for their high value and/or low harvesting cost, while small MPAs or no closure are best for species lightly harvested for their low value and high harvesting cost. Contrary to previous theoretical expectations, both high and low mobility species are expected to experience conservation benefits from protection, although, as shown previously, greater conservation benefits are expected for low mobility species. Food security benefits from MPAs can be obtained from species of any mobility. Results deliver both qualitative insights and quantitative guidance for designing MPAs for food security in open-access fisheries.
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Project description:Background Food security is becoming an increasingly important global issue. Anthropogenic factors such as rapid urbanization and industrialization have strained finite resources like land and water. Therefore, against the impending threat of food security, the world can no longer rely on traditional methods to meet its needs. Instead, more creative and technologically advanced methods must be adopted to maximise diminishing natural resources. Singapore is a good case study of a small city-state that is trying to increase its own self-production of food using technology. Scope and approach This review highlights the technologies that Singapore have adopted in enhancing food security given its limitation in natural resources. These methodologies serve as a case study that can be used as a reference point in light of the increasingly finite natural resources. The review also presents the advantages of these techniques as well as challenges that need to be overcome for them to be more widely adopted. Key findings and conclusion To increase self-production of food and enhance its food security, Singapore has employed the use of technologies such as vertical farming and aquaponics in urban farming, nutrient recovery from food waste, biodegradable food packaging from durian rinds, natural preservatives, insect farming, microalgae and cultivated meat as alternative protein sources. These technologies workaround Singapore's land and natural resource constraints, which many countries around the world can adapt. However, many of them are still relatively nascent with numerous challenges, which have to be addressed before they can be widely accepted and implemented. Highlights • Long term agriculture and pollution have led to depletion of natural resources.• Technology innovations can be used to mitigate natural resource constraints.• Singapore has adopted numerous technologies to enhance food security.• Areas include urban farming, processing technology and alternative food sources.• Singapore's model provides a good example to increase self-production of food.
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Project description:Nuclear war, beyond its devastating direct impacts, is expected to cause global climatic perturbations through injections of soot into the upper atmosphere. Reduced temperature and sunlight could drive unprecedented reductions in agricultural production, endangering global food security. However, the effects of nuclear war on marine wild-capture fisheries, which significantly contribute to the global animal protein and micronutrient supply, remain unexplored. We simulate the climatic effects of six war scenarios on fish biomass and catch globally, using a state-of-the-art Earth system model and global process-based fisheries model. We also simulate how either rapidly increased fish demand (driven by food shortages) or decreased ability to fish (due to infrastructure disruptions), would affect global catches, and test the benefits of strong prewar fisheries management. We find a decade-long negative climatic impact that intensifies with soot emissions, with global biomass and catch falling by up to 18 ± 3% and 29 ± 7% after a US-Russia war under business-as-usual fishing-similar in magnitude to the end-of-century declines under unmitigated global warming. When war occurs in an overfished state, increasing demand increases short-term (1 to 2 y) catch by at most ∼30% followed by precipitous declines of up to ∼70%, thus offsetting only a minor fraction of agricultural losses. However, effective prewar management that rebuilds fish biomass could ensure a short-term catch buffer large enough to replace ∼43 ± 35% of today's global animal protein production. This buffering function in the event of a global food emergency adds to the many previously known economic and ecological benefits of effective and precautionary fisheries management.
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Project description:Smartphones are increasingly the most common type of mobile phone used throughout the world, offering users the ability to browse the internet and access mobile applications. Smartphones are also often equipped with high definition digital cameras, accelerometers, gyroscopes, and GPS. They can, therefore, facilitate the collection and dissemination of data, often through purpose designed applications (apps). As a result, numerous apps have been developed for use in wild capture fisheries. These apps have been designed for a number of purposes including for data collection, providing information to fishers, being linked to value chains and post-harvest practices and for uses linked to employment, legislation and safety. These apps are used across the world from large commercialized fisheries to small scale fisheries. In the latter, apps have the potential to bridge a technology gap, possibly replicating the functions of multiple pieces of hardware such as are used on larger vessels. This paper presents results from a narrative literature review to provide a synthesis of smart phone apps currently available for use by commercial fishers. 84 smartphone apps were identified as being currently available for use in commercial wild capture fisheries throughout the world. Smartphone apps were available for a number of uses but they were predominantly used for data collection and reporting. While this review provides an important overview of the extent of app use in commercial wild capture fisheries there remains potential for future work to improve understanding of how beneficial app use is and what it is that encourages app use and determines an app as being 'successful'.Supplementary informationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11160-022-09727-6.
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