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Global opportunities for mariculture development to promote human nutrition

An estimated two billion people worldwide currently suffer from micronutrient malnutrition, and almost one billion are calorie deficient. Providing adequate nutrition is a growing global challenge. Seafood is one of the most important sources of both protein and micronutrients for many, yet producti...

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Autores principales: Liu, Owen R., Molina, Renato, Wilson, Margaret, Halpern, Benjamin S.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: PeerJ Inc. 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5949058/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29761051
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.4733
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author Liu, Owen R.
Molina, Renato
Wilson, Margaret
Halpern, Benjamin S.
author_facet Liu, Owen R.
Molina, Renato
Wilson, Margaret
Halpern, Benjamin S.
author_sort Liu, Owen R.
collection PubMed
description An estimated two billion people worldwide currently suffer from micronutrient malnutrition, and almost one billion are calorie deficient. Providing adequate nutrition is a growing global challenge. Seafood is one of the most important sources of both protein and micronutrients for many, yet production from wild capture fisheries has stagnated. In contrast, aquaculture is the world’s fastest-growing food production sector and now supplies over half of all seafood consumed globally. Mariculture, or the farming of brackish and marine species, accounts for roughly one-third of all aquaculture production and has received increasing attention as a potential supplement for wild-caught marine fisheries. By analyzing global patterns in seafood reliance, malnutrition levels, and economic opportunity, this study identifies where mariculture has the greatest potential to improve human nutrition. We calculate a mariculture opportunity index for 117 coastal nations by drawing on a diverse set of seafood production, trade, consumption, and nutrition data. Seventeen primary variables are combined into country-level scores for reliance on seafood, opportunity for nutritional improvement, and opportunity for economic development of mariculture. The final mariculture opportunity score identifies countries with high seafood reliance combined with high nutritional and economic opportunity scores. We find that island nations in Southeast Asia and the Caribbean are consistently identified as countries with high mariculture opportunity. In other regions, nutritional and economic opportunity scores are not significantly correlated, and we discuss the implications of this finding for crafting appropriate development policy. Finally, we identify key challenges to ameliorating malnutrition through mariculture development, including insufficient policy infrastructure, government instability, and ensuring local consumption of farmed fish. Our analysis is an important step towards prioritizing nations where the economic and nutritional benefits of expanding mariculture may be jointly captured.
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spelling pubmed-59490582018-05-14 Global opportunities for mariculture development to promote human nutrition Liu, Owen R. Molina, Renato Wilson, Margaret Halpern, Benjamin S. PeerJ Aquaculture, Fisheries and Fish Science An estimated two billion people worldwide currently suffer from micronutrient malnutrition, and almost one billion are calorie deficient. Providing adequate nutrition is a growing global challenge. Seafood is one of the most important sources of both protein and micronutrients for many, yet production from wild capture fisheries has stagnated. In contrast, aquaculture is the world’s fastest-growing food production sector and now supplies over half of all seafood consumed globally. Mariculture, or the farming of brackish and marine species, accounts for roughly one-third of all aquaculture production and has received increasing attention as a potential supplement for wild-caught marine fisheries. By analyzing global patterns in seafood reliance, malnutrition levels, and economic opportunity, this study identifies where mariculture has the greatest potential to improve human nutrition. We calculate a mariculture opportunity index for 117 coastal nations by drawing on a diverse set of seafood production, trade, consumption, and nutrition data. Seventeen primary variables are combined into country-level scores for reliance on seafood, opportunity for nutritional improvement, and opportunity for economic development of mariculture. The final mariculture opportunity score identifies countries with high seafood reliance combined with high nutritional and economic opportunity scores. We find that island nations in Southeast Asia and the Caribbean are consistently identified as countries with high mariculture opportunity. In other regions, nutritional and economic opportunity scores are not significantly correlated, and we discuss the implications of this finding for crafting appropriate development policy. Finally, we identify key challenges to ameliorating malnutrition through mariculture development, including insufficient policy infrastructure, government instability, and ensuring local consumption of farmed fish. Our analysis is an important step towards prioritizing nations where the economic and nutritional benefits of expanding mariculture may be jointly captured. PeerJ Inc. 2018-05-09 /pmc/articles/PMC5949058/ /pubmed/29761051 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.4733 Text en ©2018 Liu et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
spellingShingle Aquaculture, Fisheries and Fish Science
Liu, Owen R.
Molina, Renato
Wilson, Margaret
Halpern, Benjamin S.
Global opportunities for mariculture development to promote human nutrition
title Global opportunities for mariculture development to promote human nutrition
title_full Global opportunities for mariculture development to promote human nutrition
title_fullStr Global opportunities for mariculture development to promote human nutrition
title_full_unstemmed Global opportunities for mariculture development to promote human nutrition
title_short Global opportunities for mariculture development to promote human nutrition
title_sort global opportunities for mariculture development to promote human nutrition
topic Aquaculture, Fisheries and Fish Science
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5949058/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29761051
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.4733
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