Oceans’ contribution to food security for the poor: Confronting ominous trends
This article in the Current Conversation magazine argues that the contributions of fisheries to food security are increasingly undermined by a set of powerful trends. These trends manifest in our societies in various ways, but to really understand them, it is necessary to study the underlying discourses. Discourses represent shared ways of interpreting the world, and therefore shape imaginations of what is feasible and desirable. The first narrative is that of ‘blue growth’, which frames oceans as a frontier of economic growth. The second narrative is that of the so-called global crisis in fisheries resulting largely from overfishing. Third, informed by population growth, there is a powerful narrative that pleads for the expansion of aquaculture. Both the blue growth narrative, as well as the crisis and conservation discourse, and even the food-security-as-food-production ideology – at least in the way it is currently shaped in the fisheries domain – are potentially at odds with improving human nutrition for those who need it most. These discourses therefore need to be continuously scrutinized by questioning how they come about, what actors are pursuing them and whose interests they represent. Distribution and access are important concerns that cannot be left behind. The authors conclude that for seafood to matter for the poor, new narratives must be developed that allow for the safeguarding of small-scale fisheries and enhancing the flow of low-price seafood to the poor.