The Blue Food Assessment (BFA) provides decision makers with scientific research to help them assess aquatic food systems and integrate them into sustainable food system solutions.
dr Rosamond Naylor, BFA co-chair, tells Food Tank that stakeholders tend to separate conversations about aquatic and agricultural systems. “I think that’s because fisheries and aquaculture were viewed more as a natural resource than food.” But, argues Naylor, they are an important part of global food systems.
The BFA was created as an initiative of the Stockholm Resilience Center, Stanford University and EAT to better understand the role that aquatic foods, also known as blue foods, play in global food systems.
Naylor explains that the blue food sector includes “an incredibly large number” of small players ranging from communities that catch fish to merchants that sell products to consumers. Through the BFA, “we want to unlock the true potential of small players so that we can improve income distribution along the chain,” Naylor tells Food Tank.
To do that, Naylor says it’s important to take a nuanced approach to fisheries that examines the argument that communities have overexploited all aquatic ecosystems. “It’s not really true. There are many fisheries that are not overfished and what we want to do is reward the fishing communities and the fishermen and women who are doing things more sustainably.”
The BFA is also working intensively on the role of blue foods, which contain valuable micronutrients, in consumers’ diets. As part of a study, Naylor says, the authors began compiling a database of thousands of fish species.
“The database is now available for everyone to use, work with and really think about: How do we use our knowledge and assessment to actually design interventions and strategies to improve food security?”
Listen to the full conversation with Rosamond Naylor on Food Talk with Dani Nierenberg to learn more about the impact of the climate crisis on the fishing industry, the challenges of building equity in the blue food sector, and the future of algae production in the food system .
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Photo courtesy of Cassiano Psomas, Unsplash
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