Fishing for nutrition - improving the connection between fisheries, the food system and public health

Abstract

Fish and shellfish are rich in micronutrients. As aquaculture production grows and the pathways to sustainably manage our capture fisheries become clear seafood is positioned to play a major role in the fight against malnutrition, which is back on the rise. This PhD research endeavored to improve our understanding of how seafood production can contribute to the food system. Chapter 2 assessed the policy landscape related to the integration national-level fishery and health policies to determine where these policies are most aligned and under what conditions. The analysis evaluated 165 health and 158 fishery national-level policies around the world. Overall, however, results indicated low levels of integration in fishery and health policies, indicating that there is considerable potential for improvement. These results establish a foundational understanding of the status of national policies connecting fisheries to the healthy food system. Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 were part of the same project that evaluated at the regional scale of the US West Coast the current and potential contribution of rebuilding capture fisheries after a history of overfishing to the healthy food,. Chapter 3 used interview methods to learn from positive deviant case studies already achieving success. Chapter 4 utilized a mixed methodology that brought together quantitative and qualitative approaches. Quantitative data was synthesized to identify where affordable, underutilized fish species overlap with high food need communities who have the fishing capacity to access them. Interviews were used to determine challenges and enabling conditions of actors throughout the supply chain. Chapter 5 evaluating of the environmental impacts of nutrient-rich food production that compares diverse capture and aquaculture seafood production to other animal sourced and vegetable food groups by linking and evaluating environmental impact information from life-cycle assessments and nutrition information. Results indicate that some fish and shellfish have environmental impacts at least as low as vegetables when considering their potential to contribute nutrients towards a healthy, sustainable diet. There are 6 supplemental spreadsheets including the raw data used to compute the impact ratios in Chapter 5 submitted alongside this ETD. There is one spreadsheet for each of the 6 impacts: Greenhouse gas emissions (GHG_table.csv), Acidification (Acid_table.csv), Eutrophication (Eutro_table.csv), Fuel use (Fuel_table.csv), Water use (Water_table.csv) and Land use (land_table_csv). Each of these spreadsheets includes the environmental impacts associated with each product and food group along with the daily requirements and nutrient richness index calculated from the daily requirements.