# Global nutritional equity of fishmeal and aquaculture trade flows

## TL;DR

Aquaculture helps improve nutrition globally, but most of its benefits stay in producer countries, while vulnerable areas export nutrients, highlighting the need for fairer trade policies.

## Contribution

The study links nutrient data with trade flows to reveal how aquaculture's nutritional benefits are distributed globally.

## Key findings

- Aquaculture provides adequate nutrients for up to 2.7 billion people, especially for Vitamin B12.
- 76.8% of nutrients from aquaculture are retained domestically, supporting producer countries' nutrition.
- Most traded nutrients come from nutritionally vulnerable countries, suggesting a need for policy changes.

## Abstract

Aquaculture’s rapid growth and trade development, combined with its continued reliance on capture fisheries, have yet unknown consequences for how, where, and under which conditions aquaculture can equitably enhance human health and nutrition. We found that high domestic retention of farmed aquatic foods is a substantial contribution to domestic nutrition. Yet, the traded portion of fishmeal and farmed aquatic foods is primarily sourced from nutritionally vulnerable areas. These findings highlight that nutrition-sensitive trade and development policies have the potential to enhance aquaculture’s contribution to attaining Sustainable Development Goal 2.

Aquaculture, the single fastest growing food sector, is central to achieving key Sustainable Development Goals (e.g., SDG 2: Zero Hunger). Linking the nutrient composition of >2,800 aquatic species with >2 million fishmeal and farmed fish transactions in international aquatic food trade between 2015 and 2019, we examined aquaculture’s nutritional flows and distributional equity. We found that aquaculture provided adequate intakes for nearly a quarter of a million individuals, on average, across 14 key nutrients, and for up to 2.7 billion individuals for several nutrients, such as Vitamin B12. The vast majority of these nutrients (76.8%) were domestically retained, contributing to the nutritional security of producer countries. With most internationally traded nutrients originating from nutritionally vulnerable countries (57.7% for fishmeal and 66.3% for farmed aquatic foods), rethinking existing distribution policies with nutrition as the primary objective may help unlock the full potential of aquaculture to eliminate hunger and malnutrition.