Ben Belton

Certify Sustainable Aquaculture

Certifications limited contribution to sustainable aquaculture should complement public and private governance. Aquaculture, the farming of aquatic organisms, provides close to 50% of the worlds supply of seafood, with a value of U.S.

Immanent and Interventionist Inland Asian Aquaculture Development and its Outcomes

125 billion. It makes up 13% of the worlds animal-source protein (excluding eggs and dairy) and employs an estimated 24 million people (1). With capture (i.e., wild) fisheries production stagnating, aquaculture may help close the forecast global deficit in fish protein by 2020 (2). This so-called “blue revolution” requires addressing a range of environmental and social problems, including water pollution, degradation of ecosystems, and violation of labor standards.

Is Responsible Aquaculture Sustainable Aquaculture? WWF and the Eco-Certification of Tilapia

Aquaculture is equated with the reduction of poverty by intergovernmental agencies such as the FAO, which advocate the promotion of small‐scale aquaculture through project‐based interventions. There is a lack of convincing empirical evidence to support the efficacy of this type of intervention, however. Meanwhile, commercial cultured freshwater fish production has increased hugely throughout Asia, despite limited direct donor or government support. Its impact with respect to poverty also remains ambiguous, however. This article critically evaluates the developmental impacts of both immanent and interventionist forms of aquaculture and advances finely nuanced interpretations of both.

Does Size Matter? Reassessing the Relationship between Aquaculture and Poverty in Bangladesh

Public awareness of possible environmental impacts of seafood consumption is growing. The seafood industry and environmental pressure groups have begun to certify fish and other aquatic products produced to sustainable standards. Representations of sustainability advanced by both groups in relation to tilapia converge around limited definitions related primarily to technical parameters. Such an approach does not adequately represent the complexity of sustainable aquaculture and may be counterproductive. This is illustrated by a comparing assumptions embedded in the text of the World Wide Fund for Natures “tilapia aquaculture dialogue” with empirical findings from a study assessing the sustainability of tilapia farming systems in Central Thailand. Building on these findings, representations of sustainable tilapia aquaculture produced by the “tilapia aquaculture dialogue” are criticized, and it is argued that new approaches are required if sustainable aquaculture is to be meaningfully understood and implemented.

Passing the Panda Standard: A TAD Off the Mark?

Abstract Aquaculture has long been promoted by development institutions in Bangladesh on the understanding that it can alleviate poverty. Most of this attention has focused on forms of the activity commonly referred to as ‘small-scale’. This article draws on concepts from the literature on agricultural growth and elaborates a typology of aquaculture based on relations of production which suggests that, in Bangladesh, quasi-capitalist forms of aquaculture may possess greater potential to reduce poverty and enhance food security than the quasi-peasant modes of production generally assumed to do so. The implications of this conclusion are explored.

Out of the Factory and Into the Fish Pond: Can Certification Transform Vietnamese Pangasius?

Tilapia, a tropical freshwater fish native to Africa, is an increasingly important global food commodity. The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), a major environmental nongovernmental organization, has established stakeholder dialogues to formulate farm certification standards that promote “responsible” culture practices. As a preface to its “tilapia aquaculture dialogue,” the WWF for Nature commissioned a review of potential certification issues, later published as a peer-reviewed article. This article contends that both the review and the draft certification standards subsequently developed fail to adequately integrate critical factors governing the relative sustainability of tilapia production and thereby miss more significant issues related to resource-use efficiency and the appropriation of ecosystem space and services. This raises a distinct possibility that subsequent certification will promote intensive systems of tilapia production that are far less ecologically benign than existing widely practiced semi-intensive alternatives. Given the likely future significance of this emergent standard, it is contended that a more holistic approach to certification is essential.

Offshore Aquaculture: The Frontier of Redefining Oceanic Property

This edited volume presents and reflects upon empirical evidence of ‘sustainability’-induced and -related transition in food practices. The material collected in the various chapters contributes to our understanding of the ways in which ideas and preferences, sociotechnological developments and changes in the governance of food interact and become visible in practices of consumption, retail and production.

The evolution of aquatic agricultural systems in Southwest Bangladesh in response to salinity and other drivers of change

Over the past decade, offshore aquaculture has gained significant momentum as a global and, in particular, a U.S. seafood development strategy. Issues surrounding property rights, environmental impacts, and the social desirability of offshore aquaculture are inadequately addressed by policymakers and aquaculture specialists. This review essay describes offshore aquacultures place in the development of industrial fish farming and the policy issues surrounding an emerging natural resource issue of public concern. The full development of offshore aquaculture rests on a key political–economic factor: the ability to allow de facto private ownership of federally held ocean waters and bottom lands. We address the political obstacles that face marine property transformation and the emerging public deliberation around the development of this global food industry.

Higher fish but lower micronutrient intakes: temporal changes in fish consumption from capture fisheries and aquaculture in Bangladesh

Aquatic agricultural systems (AAS) in coastal Southwest Bangladesh have evolved in response to a number of stimuli and constraints including improving market access, technological change, and salinization. Farming systems in the region are highly dynamic, and are characterized by the integration of varying combinations of freshwater prawns, rice, fish, vegetables, and brackish water shrimp. This paper examines the developmental history, productivity, and profitability of three distinct AAS: a low-salinity freshwater prawn-dominated system; an intermediate-salinity-mixed prawn and shrimp system, and a high-salinity shrimp-dominated system. Productivity, cropping intensity, and profitability are found to be highest in the diversified low- and intermediate-salinity systems, and lower in the high-salinity system, where cultivation of rice and vegetables is no longer possible. The paper concludes that more diverse integrated systems reduce risk and vulnerability for farming households. Salinization is found to be a double-edged sword – proving a stimulus to diversification at low levels, but reducing agro-biodiversity at higher salt concentrations. While the adaptation strategies in all systems have been successful in maintaining or improving most, though not all, system functions due to high levels of social resilience, support for effective community-based adaptation strategies will enable continued transformation and adaptation to future drivers of change.

Measuring the potential for sustainable intensification of aquaculture in Bangladesh using life cycle assessment

Malnutrition is one of the biggest challenges of the 21st century, with one in three people in the world malnourished, combined with poor diets being the leading cause of the global burden of disease. Fish is an under-recognised and undervalued source of micronutrients, which could play a more significant role in addressing this global challenge. With rising pressures on capture fisheries, demand is increasingly being met from aquaculture. However, aquaculture systems are designed to maximise productivity, with little consideration for nutritional quality of fish produced. A global shift away from diverse capture species towards consumption of few farmed species, has implications for diet quality that are yet to be fully explored. Bangladesh provides a useful case study of this transition, as fish is the most important animal-source food in diets, and is increasingly supplied from aquaculture. We conducted a temporal analysis of fish consumption and nutrient intakes from fish in Bangladesh, using nationally representative household expenditure surveys from 1991, 2000 and 2010 (n = 25,425 households), combined with detailed species-level nutrient composition data. Fish consumption increased by 30% from 1991–2010. Consumption of non-farmed species declined by 33% over this period, compensated (in terms of quantity) by large increases in consumption of farmed species. Despite increased total fish consumption, there were significant decreases in iron and calcium intakes from fish (P<0.01); and no significant change in intakes of zinc, vitamin A and vitamin B12 from fish, reflecting lower overall nutritional quality of fish available for consumption over time. Our results challenge the conventional narrative that increases in food supply lead to improvements in diet and nutrition. As aquaculture becomes an increasingly important food source, it must embrace a nutrition-sensitive approach, moving beyond maximising productivity to also consider nutritional quality. Doing so will optimise the complementary role that aquaculture and capture fisheries play in improving nutrition and health.