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Fairer fish trade could fix nutrient deficiencies in coastal countries
Local fish catch could help reduce nutrient deficiencies in developing countries — but only if more of it is distributed regionally.
Fairer fish trade could fix nutrient deficiencies in coastal countries. Photo: Tadeu Jnr/Unsplash
The study argues that developing countries are missing out on a crucial food source, because most of their fish catch is sold internationally. This deprives people within 100 kilometres of the coast, especially children, of important and easily accessible nutrients.
“If these catches were more accessible locally they could have a huge impact on global food security and combat malnutrition-related disease in millions of people,” said lead author Christina Hicks, a professor at the Lancaster Environment Centre at Lancaster University.
The international team studied 367 fish species in 43 countries, and noticed that levels of calcium, iron and zinc — which are crucial to healthy development — were particularly high in tropical fish species. Fish also contains omega-3 fatty acids, which help brain development and protect against heart disease.
A single portion of fish could provide half of a child’s recommended dose of iron and zinc, and nearly all the calcium it needs.
However, more than half of the coastal countries studied showed moderate-to-severe nutrient deficiencies. This is because most fish caught in developing countries is either sent abroad directly or processed and sold to richer nations.
In Namibia, an example mentioned in the study, most of the fish is caught by local fleets, but then immediately exported, while 47 per cent of the country’s coastal population suffers from severe iron deficiency.
Diverting a small percentage of a country’s fish catch into local communities would make a huge difference to nutrition, the study’s authors say. They found that trading just 9 per cent of the fish caught annually in Namibia locally would solve the country’s iron deficiency problems.
The situation is even more stark in Kiribati, where just 1 per cent of fish catch would address the calcium deficiencies affecting 82 per cent of people living in the Pacific island nation.
In the study, Hicks and her colleagues propose several policy recommendations to address the skewed global availability of fish. These include supporting local, small-scale fisheries and reorienting the global fish trade towards better and more equal distribution of catches. (SciDev.Net)
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