Michelle Tigchelaar, Jim Leape, Fiorenza Micheli, Edward H. Allison, Xavier Basurto, Abigail Bennett, Simon R. Bush, Ling Cao, William W.L. Cheung, Beatrice Crona, Fabrice DeClerck, Jessica Fanzo, Stefan Gelcich, Jessica A. Gephart, Christopher D. Golden, Benjamin S. Halpern, Christina C. Hicks, Malin Jonell, Avinash Kishore, J. Zachary Koehn, David C. Little, Rosamond L. Naylor, Michael J. Phillips, Elizabeth R. Selig, Rebecca E. Short, U. Rashid Sumaila, Shakuntala H. Thilsted, Max Troell, Colette C.C. Wabnitz. The vital roles of blue foods in the global food system. Global Food Security 33 (2022) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfs.2022.100637
Highlights
- Blue foods are diverse, rich in essential nutrients and fatty acids, and can offer sustainable alternatives to terrestrial animal-sourced foods.
- Blue foods are often missing from food system analyses, policies, and investments.
- This paper offers three recommendations for realizing the potential of blue foods in sustainable, healthy, and just food systems.
Abstract
- Blue foods play a central role in food and nutrition security for billions of people and are a cornerstone of the livelihoods, economies, and cultures of many coastal and riparian communities. Blue foods are extraordinarily diverse, are often rich in essential micronutrients and fatty acids, and can often be produced in ways that are more environmentally sustainable than terrestrial animal-source foods. Capture fisheries constitute the largest wild-food resource for human extraction that would be challenging to replace.
- Yet, despite their unique value, blue foods have often been left out of food system analyses, policies, and investments.
- Here, we focus on three imperatives for realizing the potential of blue foods: (1) Bring blue foods into the heart of food system decision-making; (2) Protect and develop the potential of blue foods to help end malnutrition; and (3) Support the central role of small-scale actors in fisheries and aquaculture. Recognition of the importance of blue foods for food and nutrition security constitutes a critical justification to preserve the integrity and diversity of aquatic species and ecosystems.
Fig. 1. Overview of blue food benefits and challenges and the three areas of policy action identified in this paper that would help realize the potential of blue foods to contribute to sustainable, healthy, and just food system outcomes.
- To make a case for integrating blue foods into global food system decision-making, we draw on the findings of the Blue Food Assessment.
- These policy recommendations should not be seen as all-encompassing. Instead, they are an entry point into making blue foods part of food system transformations.
Transparency | Diversity | Dynamism | Evidence-based |