Nudging fisheries and aquaculture research towards food systems

Abstract

Food system is a powerful concept for understanding and responding to nutrition and sustainability challenges. Food systems integrate social, economic, environmental and health aspects of food production through to consumption. Aquatic foods are an essential part of food systems providing an accessible source of nutrition for millions of people. Yet, it is unclear to what degree research across diverse disciplines concerning aquatic foods has engaged food systems, and the value this concept has added. We conducted a systematic review of fisheries, aquaculture and aquatic food literature (2017-2019) to determine the following: the characteristics of this research; the food systems components and interrelations with which research engaged; and the insights generated on nutrition, justice, sustainability and climate change. Sixty five of the 88 reviewed articles focussed on production and supply chains, with 23 considering human nutrition. Only 13% of studies examined low-and middle-income countries that are most vulnerable to undernutrition. One third of articles looked beyond finfish to other aquatic foods, which illuminated values of local knowledge systems and diverse foods for nutrition. When aggregated, reviewed articles examined the full range of food system drivers-biophysical and environmental (34%), demographic (24%) and socio-cultural (27%)-but rarely examined interactions between drivers. Future research that examines a diversity of species in diets, system-wide flows of nutrients, trade-offs amongst objectives, and the nutritional needs of vulnerable social groups would be nudging closer to the ambitions of the food systems concept, which is necessary to address the global challenges of equity, nutrition and sustainability. | 35 SIMMANCE Et Al. 42 4.2.1 Relationships between food systems components researched 44 4.3. Emerging challenges for food systems 45 4.4. Nudging towards the concept of food systems 46 4.4.1 Consider a broader set of aquatic food types amidst diverse diets 47 4.4.2 Examine system-wide flows of nutrients and tradeoffs amongst objectives 47 4.4.3 Focus on vulnerable and marginalized social groups 47 5. CONCLUSION 48

Market women’s skills, constraints, and agency in supplying affordable, safe, and high-quality fish in Ghana

“…This emphasis resonates well with the current shift in discourse from a dominant focus on fish as either an economic resource from which to profit or as stocks in need of conservation, to valuing fish primarily as a micronutrient-dense resource to be sustainably used as food (e.g., Cohen et al 2019;Bennett et al 2021;Golden et al 2021). In this increasingly influential discourse of seeing fisheries as food systems (Simmance et al 2021), the significance of the skills and labor of small-scale traders for low-income consumers' access to safe and high-quality aquatic foods, should take center stage. In our marketplace and market woman-centered FSN perspective, we analyze (1) how fish sold in the market arrived there (i.e., traders' role in fish availability, access, and stability) and (2) market women's practices for enhancing fish safety and quality (i.e., traders' role in fish utilization) (HLPE 2020: 10).…”

Dried fish at the intersection of food science, economy, and culture: A global survey

“…The dried fish literature is a resource on which to draw as the fisheries literature shifts towards viewing fisheries as food systems (e.g. Arthur et al, 2022; Campling & Havice, 2018; Foley & Mather, 2018; Simmance et al, 2022), and in relation to the Small‐scale Fisheries Guidelines (FAO, 2015) and the Sustainable Development Goals (HLPE, 2020). At the same time, the general fisheries literature provides tools and insights with which to address important blind spots in the literature on dried fish, particularly around governance (e.g.…”

Sustainable development outcomes of livelihood diversification in small‐scale fisheries

“…Although roughly half of total eligible studies incorporated the sampling of both women and men, further inspection revealed just a fraction of these presented some form of disaggregated results, incorporated a gender‐specific component into study designs or analysis, or attempted to interpret the interaction between gender and livelihood diversification outcomes. The scarcity of reporting on gendered roles in fish‐based livelihoods and the broader aquatic food systems literature has been noted before (Simmance et al, 2021; Stacey et al, 2019), and demonstrates limited engagement with societal contexts that influence the outcomes from diversification processes.…”