Sustainability

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ITU and FAO focus on helping farmers embrace artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things

Sustainability, 1 April 2022/in E-News /by panglobal

The next wave of technological progress to sustain the world’s fast-growing global population will capitalize on artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT) to improve the precision and sustainability of farming techniques.

AI, IoT, connected services and autonomous systems together enable farmers to make decisions at the level of a single square metre or individual plant or animal, rather than entire fields or all livestock. This precision allows well-informed interventions that ultimately improve agricultural sustainability by helping farmers produce more with less.

A new International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Focus Group dedicated to ‘AI and IoT for digital agriculture’ [1] will examine emerging cyber-physical systems as groundwork for standardization to stimulate their deployment for agriculture worldwide.

“The projection that our planet will host 9.7 billion people by 2050 necessitates significant technological progress to sustain so many lives,” said Houlin Zhao, ITU Secretary-General. “This new focus group is the beginning of a global drive to ensure equitable access to the new capabilities emerging in agriculture with advances in digital technology.”

Collaboration with FAO

The focus group will work in close collaboration with the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO), which mobilizes international efforts to defeat hunger and improve nutrition and food security.

Under the group’s purview will be new capabilities to discern complex patterns from a growing volume of agricultural and geospatial data; improve the acquisition, handling, and analysis of these data; enable effective decision-making; and guide interventions to optimize agricultural production processes.

Dejan Jakovljevic, Chief Information Officer and Director of FAO’s Digitalization and Informatics Division, said: “New digital capabilities offer us a unique and immediate opportunity to transform food systems and accelerate impact towards zero hunger. The new focus group will significantly contribute towards these efforts, bringing together AI and IoT as key enablers behind new capabilities for digital agriculture.”

The envisaged study aims to support global progress in areas such as precision farming, predictive analytics for smart farming, the optimization of cultivable acreage, remote cattle monitoring and management, agricultural robotics, and greenhouse automation.

The study will pay particular attention to the needs of developing countries where people’s livelihoods are most reliant on agriculture. Those are also the countries where digital solutions can provide the greatest gains in agricultural sustainability and resilience.

Focused on smart communities

The focus group will report to ITU’s standardization expert group for ‘IoT and smart cities and communities’, ITU-T Study Group 20 [2].

The new focus group is open to all interested parties.

It comes alongside the establishment of the new Correspondence Group for ‘Artificial Intelligence of Things’ (also under ITU-T Study Group 20), aimed at developing guidelines for future standardization work related to IoT and smart cities and communities.

ITU-T Study Group 20 has also reached first-stage approval (‘consent’) of the LoRaWAN specification as an ITU standard. This transposition of the low-power protocol for wide area networks into a new ITU standard intends to support the protocol’s adoption globally.

References:

[1] https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-T/focusgroups/ai4a/Pages/default.aspx

[2] https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-T/about/groups/Pages/sg20.aspx

Simone Boitelle, Director Global Corporate Affairs FrieslandCampina (l), Yann-Gaël Rio, Danone’s Global Vice-President for Nature & Agriculture (m) and member dairy farmer Edwin Daatselaar (r)

FrieslandCampina-Danone collaboration leads to 17% greenhouse gas reduction

dairy, regenerative farming, Sustainability, 4 February 2022/in E-News /by panglobal

Simone Boitelle, Director Global Corporate Affairs FrieslandCampina (left), Yann-Gaël Rio, Danone’s Global Vice-President for Nature & Agriculture (centre) and member dairy farmer Edwin Daatselaar (right)

A three year collaboration between FrieslandCampina and Danone has led to more than 17% reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (measured from 2015 to 2020). This reduction has been realised through FrieslandCampina’s dairy farmers implementing sustainable farming practices and green energy projects. This is applied for dairy ingredients specifically provided to Danone. FrieslandCampina used the Annual Nutrient Cycling Assessment to track progress resulting from the sustainable farming practices. This extensive monitoring tool is used by almost 10,000 FrieslandCampina member dairy farms and gives farm specific insights, such as the size of their carbon footprint.

Committed to making our food system more sustainable, FrieslandCampina and Danone are both running extensive sustainability programmes to reduce their environmental impact. Both companies have committed to reaching net zero, as one of their climate goals, as well as improving soil health and biodiversity. One of the ways to achieve these goals is through regenerative agriculture practices. FrieslandCampina and Danone both want to support farmers on the journey towards a sustainable future, which led to this partnership.

Net zero and nature-positive

Simone Boitelle, Director Global Corporate Affairs FrieslandCampina noted: “For over 150 years already, FrieslandCampina believes in cooperation to achieve great results. And this collaboration is yet another great example. Supporting farmers to produce milk in balance with nature, is the key to a more sustainable, climate neutral and nature positive future. I am very proud of our member farmers who make this possible, they deserve the stage for these strong results!”

Yann-Gaël Rio, Danone’s Global Vice-President for Nature & Agriculture, added: “Sustainable dairy farming is a key priority in Danone’s journey to achieving net zero emissions. This partnership demonstrates that by combining our expertise, we can accelerate the adoption of regenerative agriculture practices to help reduce the climate impact of dairy farming. While this is a great step, there is more to be done, and we are looking forward to supporting more farmers in their transition by extending this partnership for an additional three years.”

What did the FrieslandCampina dairy farmers do?

Depending on the nature of their farm, dairy farmers can take different measures to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. The impacts from the measures implemented were tracked through the Annual Nutrient Cycling Assessment. Some examples of the measures taken are:

More protein harvested from their own farm land, further reducing the impact from sourcing feed from far away;
Optimising the cow’s diet composition: keeping a well-balanced nutritious diet that supports animal health and welfare, while reducing enteric methane emissions;
Energy measures: generating green electricity through use of solar panels, windmills and manure digesters; avoiding fossil fuels through bio-based diesel and/or reducing energy use (for example by recovering heat from milk cooling). In addition the manure digesters not only generate renewable electricity but also help to reduce methane emissions through manure storage.

What’s next for regenerative farming?

The positive results from this partnership encouraged Danone and FrieslandCampina to extend the collaboration for an additional three years. The two companies will continue their efforts together with the goal to reduce GHG emissions resulting from the production of ingredients sourced from FrieslandCampina by over 7%. This would result in almost a 25% GHG emission reduction over the course of the multi-year collaboration.

In the coming years, FrieslandCampina and Danone say they will continue their joint efforts to create innovative solutions to scale up and accelerate the transition to regenerative farming.

Most consumers in UK, Denmark, Sweden and Germany do not see nutrition as part of sustainable diets – Arla Foods survey

Sustainability, 25 January 2022/in E-News, Featured Articles /by panglobal

Two thirds of consumers living in the UK, Denmark, Sweden and Germany do not see nutrition as part of a sustainable diet, which could lead to them becoming ‘nutrition blind’ and have unintended consequences for their health. These are the findings of a recent survey of more than 8,000 consumers in these countries conducted by YouGov on behalf of Arla Foods, a Danish multinational cooperative and Scandinavia’s largest producer of dairy products.

While most consumers in the four countries say that they try to make sustainable choices wherever they can, their focus is mostly on carbon footprint, biodiversity, packaging and animal welfare. The nutritional value of the food product is to a much lesser extent being considered when choosing a sustainable diet. Only one in three (34%) consumers say that they associate nutrition with sustainable diets.

Sustainable diets, as defined by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, consist of multiple essential components which include the environmental impact but also the nutritional value of the diet.

Professor Judy Buttriss, public health nutritionist and former Director General of the British Nutrition Foundation from 2007 to 2021 commented on the survey results: “It’s great that we continue to grow our awareness of how food production and our diets affect the climate and nature. However, this research shows that many people tend to overlook the other determinants of sustainable diets, especially nutrition, which has always been the fundamental purpose of food and an essential factor for our long-term physical and mental well-being. Becoming ‘nutrition blind’ can have unintended consequences for our health and we need to bring nutrition back into the conversation about sustainable diets.”

Hidden hunger

With more than half of the European population overweight and every sixth person obese according to the World Health Organization (WHO), overnutrition is by far the most serious nutrition-related health issue in Europe. However, there is also a third and more hidden problem in both developing and developed countries, which is often seen in combination with obesity: low intakes of micronutrients (vitamins and minerals).

Lea Brader, Nutrition Scientist, Arla Foods, explained: “People at risk of micronutrient deficiency might not realise it. If your diet is poor, you can still get your energy from the macronutrients such as carbohydrate and fat. However, you don’t necessarily get sufficient amounts of micronutrients such as iron, zinc, calcium, iodine, vitamin A, B-vitamins, and vitamin C. This is why micronutrient deficiency is also called ‘hidden hunger’.”

WHO has estimated that more than two billion people globally suffer from ‘hidden hunger’ and that 20% of these are Europeans. In the UK, the National Diet and Nutrition Survey has documented a general decline in intake of some vitamins and minerals over the period from 2008 to 2017, particularly in adolescents. For example, the survey shows that approximately every fifth teenage girl and around every seventh teenage boy in the UK has a low intake of calcium, vitamin B2 and iodine.

Dietary guidelines

Encouragingly, Arla’s survey shows a clear desire among Northern European consumers to find out more information about how to make their diets more sustainable. However, half (49%) of them feel confused about how to eat sustainably and 52% state that they would like more information.

Brader said: “With tonnes of information in the public domain that may or may not be scientifically validated, it can certainly be difficult to decide on what to eat to stay healthy and live sustainably. A good place to start is to follow your national dietary guidelines.”

Official dietary guidelines promote diets that are nutritious, accessible, affordable and culturally acceptable. More and more countries have started to also include consideration of the climate impact of the food as well as food waste issues.

Key results of the survey

The survey was conducted by YouGov of 8,212 consumers in the UK, Denmark, Sweden and Germany from 20-24 September 2021.

Only 34% associate nutrition with sustainable diets – 66% do not consider it a feature of sustainable diets.
The majority associate environmentally friendly (58%) and locally produced (52%) to be features of sustainable diets
63% say they try to make sustainable food choices whenever they can
49% feel confused about how to eat sustainably
52% would like more information about how to choose a sustainable diet

FAO’s definition of sustainable diets

‘Sustainable Diets are those diets with low environmental impacts which contribute to food and nutrition security and to healthy life for present and future generations. Sustainable diets are protective and respectful of biodiversity and ecosystems, culturally acceptable, accessible, economically fair and affordable; nutritionally adequate, safe and healthy while optimizing natural and human resources.’
https://www.un.org/en/academic-impact/shifting-sustainable-diets

Arla Foods
https://www.arla.com/

Alfa Laval membrane filtration systems to turn crop leftovers into prebiotic dietary fibre for a Danish food facility

Sustainability, 25 January 2022/in E-News, Product news /by panglobal

Alfa Laval, a world leader in heat transfer, centrifugal separation and fluid handling, will supply membrane filtration systems to a food facility in Denmark for the production of healthy dietary fibre from crop leftovers. The company’s membranes will be used to extract fibres from sources such as brewers’ grains, corn stover and wheat straw, improving the circularity of the food chain.

The Alfa Laval membrane filtration systems will be used to recover and purify crop leftovers, mainly supplied from local farmers, and process it into prebiotic dietary fibre. These prebiotic fibres are not digestible by the human body but help ensure healthy bacteria growth in the stomach.

“This is an interesting order in a new and promising application for our membrane systems improving the circularity of the food chain,” says Nish Patel, President of the Food & Water Division at Alfa Laval “Our efficient membranes will be able to extract valuable fibres and thereby turn former waste into sellable ingredients, which will benefit our customers and the environment.”

www.alfalaval.com

Barry Callebaut makes CDP’s prestigious A List as a leader in corporate action and transparency on deforestation

Sustainability, 25 January 2022/in E-News /by panglobal

The Barry Callebaut Group, a Switzerland-based cocoa processor and chocolate manufacturer, has for the first time made the CDP’s prestigious A List as a leader in corporate action and transparency on deforestation. This comes the company ranked for four years in a row as a CDP global climate leader with a score of A- for their climate reduction efforts.

Barry Callebaut is one of 24 high-performing companies, securing a place on CDP’s prestigious ‘A List’, out of nearly 12,000 companies scored by CDP in 2021.

CDP’s annual environmental disclosure and scoring process is widely recognized as the gold standard of corporate environmental transparency. In 2021, over 590 investors with over US$110 trillion in assets and 200 major purchasers with US$5.5 trillion in procurement spend requested companies to disclose data on environmental impacts, risks and opportunities through CDP’s platform.

A detailed and independent methodology is used by CDP to assess companies, allocating a score on the comprehensiveness of disclosure, awareness and management of environmental risks and demonstration of best practices associated with environmental leadership, such as setting ambitious and meaningful targets.

“This is our fourth consecutive year of being recognized as a leader by CDP, which shows tremendous appreciation of our Forever Chocolate progress to make sustainable chocolate the norm by 2025. It is an enormous challenge, but the recognition by CDP is testimony to the dedication of our people, every day, to continue to innovate, scale and remain focussed on our sustainability efforts,” commented Pablo Perversi, Chief Innovation, Sustainability & Quality Officer; Global Head of Gourmet, Barry Callebaut Group.

Paul Simpson, CEO of CDP, commented: “Many congratulations to all the companies on this year’s A List. Taking the lead on environmental transparency and action is one of the most important steps businesses can make, even more so in the year of COP26 and the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report. The scale of the risk to businesses from climate change, water insecurity and deforestation can no longer be ignored, and we know the opportunities of action far outweigh the risks of inaction. Leadership from the private sector is essential for securing global ambitions for a net-zero, nature positive and equitable world. Our A List celebrates those companies who are preparing themselves to excel in the economy of the future by taking action today.”

Carbon reduction and identifying forests with high conservation value

The Barry Callebaut Group says that by 2025, their goal is to be carbon and forest positive. Their journey to reach this ambition began in 2016 with the launch of Forever Chocolate, their plan to make sustainable chocolate the norm.

One milestone on their road to reduce deforestation in 2021, was the development, after four years of work with EcoVision Lab, part of ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland) of a publicly available, industry-first, indicative High Carbon Stock (HCS) map, that identifies forests with high conservation value and areas where deforestation would cause the highest carbon emissions. This new innovative tool provides a highly automated, transparent, objective tool that generates HCS maps at global scale.

To become carbon positive Barry Callebaut have committed to assessing the carbon impact created by their own operations (scope 1), the impact generated by the energy they use (scope 2), and the impact of their entire supply chain (scope 3), which includes the production and processing of all the raw materials they source, and related Land Use Changes (LUC), which forms the biggest part of their carbon liability.

To illustrate, Barry Callebaut notes: “The use of animal feed additives is widely recognized as an effective means of reducing methane emissions in dairy cattle. To establish the most effective method to reduce our emissions, we worked in collaboration with Gold Standard and Agolin to develop a new methodology to quantify and certify carbon insetting for dairy within our chocolate supply chain. By developing this methodology we can also work more closely with our dairy suppliers to produce low carbon milk.”

The CDP A List

See the full list of companies that made this year’s CDP A List.

Uelzena Group publishes sustainability report 2020

Sustainability, 6 August 2021/in E-News /by panglobal

The Uelzena Group has published its sixth sustainability report with the title “Designing the future together”. Progress, measures and key successes were also reported in the 2020 business year within the five action fields of company, products, production, employees, and social and regional responsibility. Data was collected in accordance with the international GRI standard.

Reduction of greenhouse gas emissions

The Uelzena Group says it is continually working on reducing greenhouse gas emissions in production. To reduce emissions along the value-added chain, the Group says it is essential to focus on the upstream processes – specifically milk production. A pilot project was initiated with the aim of decreasing avoidable emissions in this area. It looks at the carbon footprint of diary farming and milk production and demonstrates options for dairy farmers to reduce their own emissions.

Focus on togetherness

The Covid-19 pandemic turned the working and business world upside down, the company notes, pointing out that lockdown measures and their economic impact also affected employees of the Uelzena Group in a variety of ways. Positive effects included a stronger team spirit and the expansion of digital possibilities, while negative effects were caused by the many necessary process adjustments. Ensuring the health and safety of the employees whilst also sustaining the business processes as a milk-processing company was a major challenge that Uelzena was able to handle successfully.

Sustainable milk production

Incorporating sustainability aspects with regard to the primary ingredient of milk holds an especially high priority for Uelzena as a milk-processing company. In 2020, the volume of raw milk supplied rose by further seven percent. 76 percent of this milk is VLOG certified, which means that no genetically modified crops are used in the cattle feed.

In order to investigate aspects of sustainability at the level of milk production, Uelzena participates in the QM sustainability module milk.

For more information on Uelzena’s 2020 sustainability report, visit: uelzena.de/en/sustainability/

Tetra Pak selected as one of the Top 50 Sustainability and Climate leaders

Sustainability, 20 July 2021/in E-News /by panglobal

Adolfo Orive, President & CEO, Tetra Pak

Tetra Pak – the world’s leading food processing and packaging solutions company – has been recognised as one of the world’s “50 Sustainability and Climate Leaders” – a docu-series project developed by the international business community to encourage businesses to take effective action in the fight against climate change.

Adolfo Orive, President & CEO at Tetra Pak, said: “Our company was founded on the philosophy that a package should save more than it costs. Sustainability has always been at the core of everything we do, as such it is also a fundamental building block of our 2030 strategy, so we are proud to receive industry recognition for our work to date.

“We are the world’s leading food processing and packaging supplier and provide food safely to billions of people in more than 160 countries.

“We have already taken great strides on our journey to pioneer a sustainable future. However, with the current climate crisis and the potential food security challenges, we believe that the food packaging industry needs a major step change in its evolution. Our ambition is to deliver the world’s most sustainable food package. This means creating cartons that are fully made from renewable or recycled materials, are fully recyclable and carbon neutral. We see this as the only way to protect what’s good – food, people and the planet.”

Watch the documentary showcasing their journey.

The video features interviews with members of Tetra Pak’s Global Leadership Team, highlighting how the role of food sector in tackling climate change is becoming even more imperative. They explain why accelerating de-carbonisation and collaborations is critical to lead the sustainability transformation of the food packaging industry – addressing complex and multi-faceted challenges such as global warming, circularity and biodiversity.

Food overlooked in climate change

Food is a critical but often overlooked element of climate change. The global food system accounts for 26% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions [1], while 8% of total emissions are caused by food waste [2]. In other words, if food waste were a country, it would be the world’s third largest producer of emissions. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the weaknesses of the world’s food system, which will only be further amplified by the expected growth of the world population to 9.1 billion by 2050 [3].

Feeding the world

High-performance food packaging plays a critical role in feeding the world, but it must do so sustainably, so that food availability does not come at the cost of the planet. This lies behind Tetra Pak’s purpose: To commit to making food safe and available, everywhere, in a way that protects what’s good – protecting food, protecting people as well as protecting the planet. To minimise climate impact while helping to ensure food security for the future, the company takes a full life cycle view of its solutions. Always working collaboratively. This means:

Maximising the use of renewable materials, and sourcing them responsibly in a way that protects biodiversity
Minimising the carbon impact of its operations as well as the one created by its value chain, for instance by accelerating the switch to renewable energy and by stepping up investment to develop low carbon processing and packaging solutions
Enabling greater access to safe food while reducing food waste: the aseptic filling technology, that Tetra Pak introduced to the food industry in the early 1950s, allows for ambient distribution and storage, without requiring energy intensive refrigeration
Driving an active agenda to develop sustainable recycling value chains

References

https://ourworldindata.org/food-ghg-emissions
UN FAO, Food wastage footprint & climate change
http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/35571/icode/

Aquatic foods researcher awarded the 2021 World Food Prize for pioneering work with small fish

Nutrition, Sustainability, 25 May 2021/in E-News /by panglobal

Dr. Shakuntala Haraksingh Thilsted

The 2021 World Food Prize was awarded 11 May to leading nutrition expert Dr. Shakuntala Haraksingh Thilsted for her work in pioneering fish-based food systems to improve nutrition, health and livelihoods for millions of people around the world.

Dr. Thilsted was the first to establish that many small fish species commonly eaten across Southeast Asia are an important source of essential micronutrients and fatty acids and improve the absorption of nutrients in plant-based foods. Her work has reshaped scientific understanding of the benefits of fish in diets. This knowledge has helped prioritize increases in fish consumption and production, transforming the diets and incomes of some of the world’s most vulnerable people.

The 2021 Laureate announcement featured pre-recorded remarks from the U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Thomas J. Vilsack and UN Nutrition Chair Naoko Yamamoto, with World Food Prize Foundation President Barbara Stinson announcing the name of the Laureate.

“Dr. Thilsted figured out how these nutrient-rich small fish can be raised locally and inexpensively,” said Blinken. “Now, millions of low-income families across many countries, including Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Nepal, Burma, Zambia, Malawi are eating small fish regularly, dried and fresh, in everything from chutneys to porridge, giving kids and breastfeeding mothers key nutrients that will protect children for a lifetime. That is all thanks to her.”

Small-scale aquaculture

Much of Dr. Thilsted’s success in expanding small-scale aquaculture is due to the development of pond polyculture systems, in which small and large fish species are farmed together in water bodies and rice field ponds. Dr. Thilsted led research revealing that raising different fish varieties together increases total production and the nutritional value of the production.

“I am truly honuored to receive the 2021 World Food Prize, and I am deeply humbled to be placed in such distinguished ranks as those of past Laureates,” Dr. Thilsted said. “This award is an important recognition of the essential but often overlooked role of fish and aquatic food systems in agricultural research for development. Fish and aquatic foods offer life-changing opportunities for millions of vulnerable women, children and men to be healthy and well-nourished.”

Cost-effective at supplying nutrients

In Bangladesh, where her research on fish began with long-term support from Danish International Development Assistance (DANIDA), Dr. Thilsted’s fish-based approach is now recognized as more cost-effective at supplying nutrients than vegetable gardening, prompting the government to promote pond polyculture as a means of tackling malnutrition.

This approach has also helped Bangladesh become the fifth largest aquaculture producer in the world, supporting 18 million people and increasing productivity threefold since 2000. Women in particular have also benefited from the greater economic opportunities through increased fish production, as women account for 60 percent of Bangladesh’s smallholder fish farmers.

Nutrition-sensitive food systems

“Dr. Thilsted is the seventh woman to be awarded the World Food Prize and the first woman of Asian heritage,” said Stinson. “She is at the helm of our global progress in the UN Decade of Action and continues to stand at the forefront of innovation, pushing the boundaries of nutrition-sensitive food systems, truly changing the conversation from not just feeding populations but nourishing them.”

Dr. Thilsted’s trailblazing approach also extends throughout the entire chain of producing, processing, transporting, selling and consuming aquatic food. For instance, her research has led to the development of a highly nutritious fish chutney, inspired by her own grandmother’s recipe, and fish powder, helping improve the diets of millions of pregnant and breastfeeding women and their children.

Source of low-emission, high-nutrition foods

“As our global population grows, we will need diverse sources of low-emission, high-nutrition foods like aquaculture,” said Secretary Vilsack. “It is going to be crucial in feeding the world while reducing our impact on the climate. Dr. Thilsted has been a leader in this effort and certainly a worthy recipient of the World Food Prize this year.”

Dr. Thilsted, the Global Lead for Nutrition and Public Health at WorldFish, a CGIAR research centre headquartered in Malaysia, has worked across disciplines and united international partners to scale up this nutrition-sensitive approach in countries across Asia and Africa.

“The choice of Dr. Shakuntala Haraksingh Thilsted as the 2021 World Food Prize Laureate by the Selection Committee precisely meets the qualities envisioned by the award’s founder and Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Norman Borlaug, increasing and improving food production through scientific discovery,” said Paul Schickler, Chairman, World Food Prize Council of Advisors. “Dr. Thilsted has improved the production of small fish species and enabled fish delivery from the farmer to the consumer. The Council of Advisors congratulates Dr. Thilsted.”

Now a Danish citizen, Dr. Thilsted descends from a family of Indian Hindu migrants to Trinidad and Tobago, and she began her career as the first and only woman stationed in Tobago’s Ministry of Agriculture, Lands and Fisheries.

Later, while working at the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research in Bangladesh, Dr. Thilsted established a kitchen garden at the malnutrition rehabilitation centre where more than 6,000 children were admitted every year. Alongside an outreach programme for the families and communities of discharged children to help improve diets, these measures helped bring down readmittance rates by two thirds.

Human health and the environment

Motivated by a desire to prevent malnutrition with earlier interventions, Dr. Thilsted began researching the role of fish and aquaculture, working with international organizations including UNICEF, the UN’s International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the World Bank and, since 2010, WorldFish. She also holds leadership roles in the United Nations Food Systems Summit 2021 and the High-Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition.

“Nutrition is everybody’s business,” said Yamamoto. “Every country, every sector has a role to play. Good nutrition can improve human capital and drive sustainable development. We are proud Dr. Thilsted’s work is highlighting how aquatic foods can benefit both human health and the environment.”

“Dr. Thilsted is credited for developing an innovative farming system through fisheries, aquaculture, and related value chains to dramatically impact the food supply, nutrition, and health of poor people living in vulnerable environments,” said Gebisa Ejeta, Chair, World Food Prize Laureate Selection Committee. “The Selection Committee recognized her remarkable research and development achievement that is shaping food systems to be more sustainable, resilient and equitable for everyone.”

sustainable fishers and a living wage for fishers

Sustainable fisheries and the well-being of fishers — a Q&A with Alfredo Giron-Nava and Andrés Cisneros-Montemayor

fishers living wage, Sustainability, sustainable fisheries, 14 April 2021/in Featured Articles /by panglobal

Marine fisheries employ millions of people around the world and play an essential role in aquatic food systems. However, while there is a strong push for achieving biological sustainability in global fisheries, is not enough to ensure the well-being of fishers and their families, according to a new paper published in Fish and Fisheries.

The research, with collaborators at the University of British Columbia, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and UC Santa Barbara, finds that while sustainable fisheries are essential for ocean health and a “Blue Economy”, they are insufficient to ensure a living-wage for many fishers around the world. Instead, the authors find, even if fisheries were perfectly managed to meet maximum sustainable yield, a common goal for fisheries management, up to 70% of fishers worldwide would still not make the minimum wage in their country.

Laura Anderson speaks to co-lead authors of the paper Alfredo Giron-Nava and Andrés Cisneros-Montemayor about the importance of social well-being in fisheries and future efforts toward a resilient blue economy.

Giron-Nava is an André Hoffmann fellow at the Stanford Center for Ocean Solutions and the World Economic Forum Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution-San Francisco and Cisneros-Montemayor is deputy director of the Nippon Foundation Ocean Nexus Center.

How would you define a Blue Economy?

A Blue Economy is made up of one or more ocean industries established and run in a way that is socially equitable, environmentally sustainable, and economically viable. The focus on social equity is what really sets a blue economy apart from other types of development, because the overall goal is to make sure that benefits go to frontline communities and people that are most vulnerable or historically marginalized.

Can you explain how this research builds on current strategies for sustainable fisheries management?

For over 50 years, the most common goal for fisheries management has been to maximize the catch we can take sustainably from a given fishery, a concept known as the Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY). The idea behind the MSY is that if more fish are available to fishers, this will generate more food and money and more people will benefit from it. Our research questions this basic set of assumptions and highlights that we have to directly address inequitable distribution of fish and revenues within seafood value chains. Often the people actually doing the fishing and processing are the ones getting the least share of economic benefits and rarely have a true voice in management goals.

What motivated you to explore these questions?

Giron-Nava: Early in my career as a fisheries scientist, I realized that any plan to manage a fishery is inherently tied to a community that gets impacted, and that the effective enforcement of regulations to preserve ecosystems relies on communities that care and recognize the value of conservation. With this in mind, it’s important to recognize the limit that fisheries productivity has to support coastal communities and face the challenge that we need to think more holistically about good fisheries management that also pursues societal goals.

Cisneros-Montemayor: In addition to being a fisheries scientist and economist, I grew up in a fishing town in Mexico. Throughout my life, I’ve seen how our focus on the biology and ecology of fisheries management simply hasn’t worked for supporting the well-being of fishers and their families, which is supposed to be the ultimate goal. Ecology is still really important, but we have to start recognizing that the underlying issues that lead to poverty and unsustainable practices are social, not ecological.

What did you discover about the connection between fisheries management and fishers livelihoods?

We found that there isn’t a strong relationship between the state of fish stocks in terms of the MSY and the income level of fishers relative to the minimum living wages in their countries. Of course, healthy fish stocks can produce more fish and more money, but there are many other factors that play a more important role when it comes to well-being.

What can researchers and policymakers learn from fishing communities?

A lot of things, but probably the most important one is that what researchers and policymakers see as the most important goals and aspects of well-being may be different than those of the communities themselves. We need to start by listening and making sure that we are all on the same page as far as what the challenges and likely best solutions are.

How might this research apply to on-the-ground policy action?

Cisneros-Montemayor: One really direct way is by encouraging fisheries scientists, who, in my experience, absolutely value fisher perspectives, to connect with social scientists and frontline workers. Hopefully this can lead to cooperation at higher levels, like among institutions that may have different mandates but all have a role to play in complex systems of fisheries and social well-being.

Giron-Nava: Another way is by starting a debate on what other strategies exist to ensure the social well-being of fishing communities. Should we be developing strategies to increase the value of the catch? Can we redesign fisheries subsidies to target some of these deficits? Is it mostly that wealth is concentrated by a few individuals who own the vessels and fishing permits? We hope that our work will inspire these questions and get managers talking to communities.

It sounds like there is still a lot to learn. What additional research is needed to inform just transitions to sustainability?

It’s important to find better ways to account for income and benefits beyond just the landed value of fisheries. Alternative sources of income, contributions of other household members, the role of the processing sector — which in most places is overwhelmingly led by women — and non-market benefits are just a few things that we didn’t include in our analysis because there isn’t enough data right now, but are super important to explore going forward.

Why is it important to understand sustainable ocean management holistically?

Giron-Nava: The value of the ocean goes way beyond the money generated for fishing. It is also about the deep cultural connections that coastal communities have with it. Sustainable ocean management has to recognize these other values when thinking about ‘maximizing’ fishing revenues. This means bringing to the table not only ecologists and fisheries scientists, but also anthropologists, sociologists, communicators and others who may be able to place those values front and center when designing management plans.

Cisneros-Montemayor: A lot of people really want to have vibrant communities and a healthy ocean, but the evidence tells us that we need to put much more focus on the social issues than we have been if we want to achieve either of those goals.

Read the full Fish and Fisheries paper