The Forgotten Harvest: Small-scale Fisheries, Wealth and Food Security  

Suggested Bibliographic Reference: Challenging New Frontiers in the Global Seafood Sector: Proceedings of the Eighteenth Biennial Conference of the International Institute of Fisheries Economics and Trade, July 11-15, 2016. Compiled by Stefani J. Evers and Ann L. Shriver. International Institute of Fisheries Economics and Trade (IIFET), Corvallis, 2016.Proceedings of the Eighteenth Biennial Conference of the International Institute of Fisheries Economics and Trade, held July 11-15, 2016 at Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Center (AECC), Aberdeen, Scotland, UK.Over a billion people on our planet suffer from a lack of food and another two billion have nutritional deficiencies. By 2050, global food production will need to increase by between 70 and 100 percent to feed a growing global population. Small-scale fisheries play a critical role in food security and nutritional wellbeing, poverty alleviation, and equitable and sustainable resource development. Small-scale fisheries support both local consumption and international trade in seafood. They contribute about half the total global catch of fish and employ over 90 percent of the world’s fishers and fish workers, nearly 50 percent of who are women. Importantly, small-scale fisheries account for 54% of developing country catches of which 90% is consumed locally. A number of factors, both internal and external to fisheries management, will determine the overall trajectory for the wellbeing of small-scale fisheries over the next decade and beyond. This presentation proposes a framework for determining how management interventions in small-scale fisheries could vary in their focus and starting point depending on the relative characteristics of the fishery to which they are to be applied. It describes key reform pathways for small-scale fisheries and suggests which should receive the greatest emphasis in different contexts. These elements include the degree of integration with markets for sustainable seafood, production volume and value of a fishery, level of food security and the quality of governance. The framework is applied to a range of small-scale fisheries to demonstrate relevance