Effect of fish downstream supply chain on wealth creation: the case of tambatinga in the Brazilian Midnorth

Abstract

We describe the downstream supply and value chains originating from commercial tambatinga farming in Midnorth Brazil. We assessed how farm size affects intermediaries and job creation, income generation and the number of wealth bene ciaries. We surveyed 16 commercial farms from 0.1 to 220 ha and their supply chains. To compare wealth creation and the number of bene ciaries we established a baseline annual production of 550 t. Labor hours per tonne tended to rise in medium and extra-large farms. There were two main types of sh downstream supply chains: small farms selling their sh directly to consumers and large farms relying on intermediary trading, where gross revenue was spread among the different parts of the supply chain. Large supply chain stakeholders enhanced net income, typically through supermarket sales. However, the few farms and intermediaries involved resulted in low, poorly distributed, wealth creation. Intermediary trading through markets resulted in high global wealth creation but incomes below the minimum salary of most market sellers. Market sellers shipping from the wholesale market showed improved income. Fish trading undertaken by small farms produced the best gross revenue per traded sh, providing considerable wealth creation, especially in the case of selling at consumers' homes and markets. This supply chain also permitted good wealth distribution. Net incomes of self-employed farmers exceeded the regional minimum salary by a factor of 3 to 5. Direct selling was thus more appropriate for lifting people out of poverty.1 Background Aquaculture is one of the fastest-growing food-producing sectors, increasing about 6% yearly in the past three decades and employing more than 20 million people (FAO 2020). This activity has been cited as essential to feed a growing world population in the present century (Béné et al. 2015). Worldwide aquatic animal production surpassed 85 million tonnes worth USD 259 billion in 2019 (FAO 2021). Most of the aquaculture production comes from inland small-scale pond farms in rural areas . Despite this overall scenario, the way in which small-scale freshwater pond aquaculture is connected with the surrounding social, economic and environmental systems is poorly investigated (Fonseca et al. 2022).The success of aquaculture depends on a set of linked elements that constitute the production chain. This chain includes the farms themselves, together with a complex web of pre-production and postproduction elements. The production chain involves, amongst others, the infrastructure, policies, the suppliers of feed, seed and fertilizer, processors, distributors, traders and consumers (Valenti and Tidwell 2006;Valenti and Moraes-Valenti 2010). Each production chain includes supply and value chains of materials and goods provided to farms and for farm outputs. The supply chain is de ned as the group of companies through which a product or service moves from producer to the end consumer, while the value chain is the set of market functions provided by the companies in the supply...