Trade coupled with aquaculture is sustaining growth and improving stability in global aquatic food supply

doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-4717809/v1

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Trade coupled with aquaculture is sustaining growth and improving stability in global aquatic food supply

https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-4717809/v1

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Aquatic food security is closely interconnected with multiple sustainable development goals (SDGs). Although assessing aquatic food security relies on understanding global trends in per capita production and consumption, there has been no comprehensive index to evaluate these trends in a country or regional context. Here, we develop a novel framework based on a comprehensive scoring system to assess changes in contemporary per capita aquatic food production and consumption trends (tendency, magnitude, and stability) across 177 countries in two time periods (1961–1990 and 1991–2019). Globally, over 50% of countries scored positive in production and consumption trends from 1961 to 1990. However, between 1991 and 2019, over half of the countries achieved negative production trend scores, while 68.4% of countries maintained positive consumption trend scores, accompanied by higher stability in the trends. Meanwhile, while global overall aquatic food production trend scores decreased significantly across both periods, the consumption trend scores did not decline substantially. This caused a notable overall increase in the positive disparity between consumption and production trend scores. We highlight an increasing disjunction between per capita consumption and production comprehensive trends while underscoring the collaborative synergy between aquaculture and trade as crucial factors that sustain the increase and improve stability of aquatic food consumption for most countries worldwide. The scores of global production and consumption trends of aquatic foods can provide valuable indicators for managers and policymakers to promote sustainable development and more equitable distribution of aquatic products, thereby improving future food security.

aquatic foods

food security

production

consumption

trade

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agenda has set food security and ending malnutrition as a global priority (Nations, 2015). “Food security” is a concept that is open to multiple definitions and interpretations (Dilley and Boudreau, 2001; Gregory et al., 2005). An important concept for food security research stems from the definition of food security by the 1996 World Food Summit, which include four dimensions: availability, access, utilization, and stability over time (Barrett, 2010; FAO, 1996, 2010; Stamoulis and Zezza, 2003). Amongst them, stability in food production and supply is at the heart of food security and ensures that food systems remain resilient in times of crisis (Ghalibaf et al., 2022). Ideally, food systems should become resilient to short- and long-term shocks in production systems, such as climate change or the recent COVID-19 pandemic, as well as supply chains driven by environmental, political, technical, demographic and economic forces (Béné et al., 2019; Erokhin and Gao, 2020; Jennings et al., 2016). Therefore, a key question we face is how to meet the increasing global demand in a stable and sustainable manner (Froehlich et al., 2021).

Thus far, food security-related research has mainly focused on terrestrial food systems (Ghalibaf et al., 2022; Nicholson et al., 2021; Wang et al., 2023), while few studies have addressed the security of fishery production and consumption. The supply of aquatic food to humans is a critical factor in global food security, providing not only high-quality proteins, but also representing an important source of a wide range of essential micronutrients, minerals and fatty acids (Boyd et al., 2022; Golden et al., 2021; Henchion et al., 2017; Hicks et al., 2019). Global aquatic food consumption per capita has roughly doubled over the last half century (1967–2017) and is now at par with poultry and pork on an edible weight basis (FAO, 2022; Naylor et al., 2021b). This doubling of world average per capita aquatic food consumption has been primarily driven by the rapid increase of consumption in Eastern and South-eastern Asia, more than tripling during the same period, whereas the growth in the rest of the world has been much more modest (Cai and Leung, 2022). This phenomenon suggests the existence of high variability in consumption and production trends of aquatic products across countries and regions (Cai and Leung, 2017; Naylor et al., 2021b). At present, although many studies have focused on the volume or time trends of aquatic foods in different countries, few have taken their temporal stability into account. Comprehensive trend analysis should not only encompass trend tendencies (i.e., increases, decreases, or unchanging trends), but also temporal stability—here understood as the temporal invariability of time sequence data. For instance, a sustained and stable upward trend in per capita consumption is different from a trend characterized by increasing fluctuations. The former implies that a country or region has a more stable supply chain, while the latter suggests it is relatively unstable.

With a dramatic increase in human population and demand, the ideal scene would be one of a stable global increase in aquatic food supply over time. However, due to differences in economic development, trade, production conditions, dietary habits, and other factors, consumption and production characteristics vary among different countries and regions (FAO, 2022; Free et al., 2022; Nash et al., 2022; Naylor et al., 2021b), and their ability to resist disruptions is consequently bound to be different and dynamic over time. Achieving food security and healthy diets from sustainable food systems for everyone on the planet entails more knowledge and careful consideration of local and regional realities (Cai and Leung, 2022; Troell et al., 2019; Willett et al., 2019).

In light of a rapidly increasing global population demand for aquatic food, contemporary global policy dialogues are focused on sustainably amplifying aquatic food production to meet nutritional demands while minimizing ecological impacts (Cai and Leung, 2022; Costello et al., 2020; Merino et al., 2012). As the world may be approaching the constraints of a finite, global aquatic food production capacity (Costello et al., 2020; Troell et al., 2014), sourcing trajectories from all nations must be considered together for more rational planning distribution of aquatic foods in the future (Crona et al., 2020). As a starting point, this requires a comprehensive analysis of historical and current trends in the production and consumption of global aquatic foods. Here, we present a comprehensive analysis of contemporary global marine aquatic food (i.e., fish, cephalopods, and crustaceans) production and consumption stability based on annual data from 177 countries between 1961 and 2019 using a novel framework that integrates the assessment of trends (positive, negative, or unchanged) and temporal stability. Our framework provides a simple but effective way of assessing changes in temporal trends in global aquatic food production and consumption coupled with the capacity of countries and regions to adapt to those changes (i.e., according to the magnitude of temporal variation). Such information will enable decision makers and governments to proactively design and implement policies and aid strategies to optimize the future global distribution pattern of aquatic foods.

Data collection

The original global aquatic food production and supply data (live weight) were sourced from FAO food balance sheets of aquatic products (1961–2019) and FAO global fishery and aquaculture production statistics (1950–2021) of the FishstatJ software (FAO, 2023). For the current study, aquatic food data included all fishes, crustaceans, and cephalopods, while algae, aquatic plants, mollusks, echinoderm, cnidaria, other aquatic animals (e.g., turtles, frogs, and mammals), and reported inedible species were not considered. This is because, although mollusks and algae accounted for a significant proportion of fisheries output in live weight, especially in aquaculture, they comprise a very small proportion in edible weight (FAO, 2023; Naylor et al., 2021a). Annual per capita aquatic food production and consumption were calculated by dividing total annual production and aquatic food supply data by annual population data for each country obtained from the United Nations World Population Prospects 2022 revision (Nations, 2022). Nonetheless, it should be noted that aquatic food consumption in this study does not refer to the quantity effectively eaten but to the theoretical maximum live weight available before consumption. We divided the datasets into two subsets of almost equal duration (1961–1990 and 1991–2019). Initially, a total of 220 countries and territories (hereafter called countries) were selected. We discarded countries with series containing more than one-third of the years with zero values, resulting in a final set of 177 countries retained for subsequent analysis of which 173 had no zero values across the entire series. These selected countries account for 92% ± 0.9% (mean ± SD) of the total world population, 91.2% ± 4.4% of production and 89.9% ± 5.4% of consumption from 1961 to 2019.

Trend assessment framework

We developed a novel framework to comprehensively assess the nature and behavior of trends in per capita production and consumption of aquatic foods at the country level. We generated two indices, namely the aquatic food production score (AFPS) and consumption score (AFCS), by integrating the country-level linear tendency (positive, negative, or unchanged), magnitude of slope, and temporal stability (Fig. 1). “Stability” can be defined by the temporal invariability of time sequence data calculated as the ratio of temporal mean to standard deviation (Wang et al., 2019). In this study, stability was calculated on the detrended data to remove the potentially confounding effects of data change over the study periods (White et al., 2020). The calculation method for the linear trend and temporal stability is provided in the statistical analysis section.

Next, we used the estimated trend and temporal stability based on production and consumption data for each of the 177 countries and two time periods to separately calculate the AFPS and AFCS. To do so, we first divided each of the countries into three groups based on the type of slope: non-significant, significant positive and significant negative (Fig. 1). We then calculated the median of the positive slopes, the median of the negative slopes, and the median of the detrended stability of production and consumption for all countries in both time periods. Next we assigned scores to each country within the negative slope group in accordance with the following criteria: countries with slopes smaller than the median slope for the group and greater than the overall detrended stability median received a score of -4; countries with slopes smaller than the negative median slope but lower than the stability median received a score of -3; countries with slope values greater than the negative median slope and greater than the stability median received a score of -2; and countries with slope values greater than the negative median slope and lower than the stability median received a score of -1. The same scoring criteria was used for the positive slope group but using positive instead of negative scores (Fig. 1). Finally, countries with a non-significant slope and lower than the stability median received a score of -0.5; and countries with a non-significant slope and greater than the stability median received a score of 0.5. Therefore, our scoring criteria assigned the highest positive/negative scores to countries experiencing continuous and stable upward/downward trends.

Statistical analysis

To allow for the comparison of slopes and stabilities across countries and periods, we first rescaled the per capita production and consumption data to range between zero and one. To extract the corresponding slope coefficients and stability indices for the calculation of AFPS and AFCS, we used the generalized least squares regression model (GLS) for each country, which was implemented using the ‘gls’ function from the ‘nlme’ package (Pinheiro, 2009). We specified a first-order autoregressive (AR1) correlation structure in these GLS models to account for potential temporal autocorrelation in the time series residuals. The standard deviation of residuals σ_d for each regression model measures the detrended variation, from which the detrended temporal stability S_d of a country was estimated as S_d = µ/σ_d (Tilman et al., 2006). In this way, for each period, every country had a single detrended stability value and a temporal trend represented by the slope of the linear regression model. Finally, we used the “wilcox.test” and “t.test” function from the “stats” R package to conduct the Wilcoxon rank-sum test and t-test separately. This allowed us to compare the temporal differences in AFPS and AFCS among countries over the entire study period, as well as their differences between the two periods (Hollander et al., 2013). All statistical analyses were performed using R version 4.1.1 for Windows (R Development Core Team, 2021).

Global trends in production and consumption

During the first period (1961–1990), 58.2% of countries had a positive AFPS and 41.8% had negative values. A total of 13.6% of the countries achieved the highest production scores (AFPS = 4), indicating large-magnitude and stable positive trends, while 9.6% obtained the lowest scores (large-magnitude, stable negative trends; AFPS = -4) (Fig. 2a and Supplementary Table 1). In contrast, only 42.9% of countries achieved positive AFPS during the second period (1991–2019), while 57.1% had negative scores. Countries with a stagnant trend in production and instability (AFPS = -0.5), accounted for a similar proportion in both periods. The percentages of countries in both of the highest (17.5%) and lowest (14.7%) score categories in the second period increased compared with the first period (Fig. 2b and Supplementary Table 2). Continentally, the distribution of countries with the highest production scores changed between periods, with those of the first period concentrated in Europe, Asia, and Africa, while those of the second were mainly located in Asia, such as China, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Bangladesh. Conversely, the countries with the lowest scores in production remain mainly located in Africa for both periods (Supplementary Tables 1 and 2).

In terms of per capita consumption, 57.6% of countries worldwide had a positive AFCS during the first period, while 42.4% were negative. Furthermore, the highest and lowest AFCS were obtained by 15.8% and 4.0% of countries, respectively (Fig. 2c and Supplementary Table 1). These figures improved during the second period with the total number of countries showing a positive AFCS increasing by 10.8%, along with a global increase in aquatic food consumption stability (i.e., higher relative proportion of countries scoring an AFCS of 0.5, 2, and 4). Further, the number of countries with the highest AFCS increased substantially relative to the first period (+ 11.9%, primarily concentrated in Asia), while those with the lowest AFCS saw only a marginal increase (+ 3.3%, primarily concentrated in Africa) (Fig. 2d and Supplementary Tables 1 and 2). Overall, 24 and 35 countries respectively maintained significant increases in production and consumption across both periods, whereas nine countries (France, Israel, Kuwait, Mali, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, and Virgin Islands) and two countries (Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands) continued to show significant declines in production and consumption, respectively (Fig. 2 and Supplementary Data 1).

Temporal differences in production and consumption trends

Compared with the first period, 38.4% of countries experienced an increase in their AFPS in the second period, while 49.7% of countries saw a decrease and only 11.9% remained unchanged (i.e., same AFPS score in both periods) (Fig. 3a). There was a significant decrease in the overall global production score (Fig. 3c, Supplementary Table 3) although no continent showed significant changes in production scores, except South America (significant decrease at the 0.1 significance level). Conversely, consumption trend scores showed an opposite trend, with more countries experiencing an increase (45.8%) than a decrease (42.9%) in AFCS between the two periods, while 11.3% remained unchanged (Fig. 3b). Unlike AFPS, no significant changes were observed in global AFCS, but there was a significant decrease in overall consumption scores in Africa, while Asia showed a significant increase (significant at the 0.1 significance level) (Fig. 3d and Supplementary Table 3). Across the two periods, significant declines in AFPS (change in AFPS ≤ -4) were observed in 33 countries, while 19 countries experienced substantial growth in production trends (change in AFPS ≥ 4). Regarding changes in AFCS, 18 and 29 countries saw significant decreases and increases, respectively (Supplementary Table 4).

Differences between consumption and production trends

The difference between consumption and production trends varied between time periods. In the first period, 41.8% of countries had equal consumption and production scores (zero difference), while the proportions of countries with positive and negative differences were similar (28.2% and 29.9%, respectively) (Fig. 4a). In the second period, the proportion of countries with higher consumption than production scores (i.e., positive differences) increased to 45.8%, while the proportion of countries with higher production than consumption scores (negative differences) decreased to 18.1%, and 36.2% of countries show no score difference (Fig. 4b). When comparing differences between periods, statistically significant increasing trends were observed in Europe, North America, and South America during the second period (Fig. 4c). Furthermore, global differences between consumption and production scores significantly increased in the second period than in the first period (Fig. 4c).

Over the years, the definition of food security has evolved from its traditional focus on food availability and access to more inclusive measures, such as nutritional value and stability (Farrukh et al., 2020). Stability in food production and supply is at the heart of food security and ensures that food systems are resilient in times of crisis (Ghalibaf et al., 2022). In this study, we develop a comprehensive trend assessment framework that accounts for both the tendency, magnitude, and stability of a trend and demonstrate its application to quantify and compare global changes in country-level per capita aquatic food production and consumption trends over the past few decades.

Using this novel framework, our results reveal that most countries (58.2%) achieved a positive AFPS during the first period (1961–1990), whereas 57.1% of nations recorded negative production scores during the second period (1991–2019) (Fig. 2a, b). At the same time, the percentages of countries in both the highest and lowest score categories increased compared with the first period. The main reason for this pattern is changes in the concentration of aquatic food production. Before the 1990s, aquaculture was underdeveloped, and the global supply of aquatic products was largely dependent on capture fisheries (FAO, 2020). After the 1990s, the contribution of aquaculture has increasingly grown, contrasting with the stagnation observed in harvested aquatic food production, both in Asia and the rest of the world (FAO, 2020). From 1991 to 2019, the proportion of aquaculture production yielding positive scores significantly exceeded that of capture fisheries, thereby leading to a notably higher overall score for aquaculture compared to capture fisheries (Supplementary Fig. 1). Currently, over 91% of global aquaculture production is produced within Asia (FAO, 2022; Tacon, 2020), and such growth in aquaculture can be attributed to increasing urban domestic demand and infrastructure development (Belton and Thilsted, 2014). In comparison, it is often suggested that regulatory policies in developed countries have constrained the development of aquaculture (Abate et al., 2016; Engle and Stone, 2013). This observation is generally consistent with the global distribution of aquaculture production trends observed since the 1990s (Supplementary Fig. 1a), where five countries accounted for over 90% of Asian aquaculture production, namely China, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Bangladesh. This concentrated production pattern is reflected in the observed significant decline in global AFPS (Fig. 3a, c). At the same time, South America also showed a significant overall decline in AFPS (significant decrease at the 0.1 significance level), with all its countries experiencing a decline in production scores other than Brazil, Colombia, and Suriname (Fig. 3c, Supplementary Table 3). This is primarily due to insufficient increase in aquaculture production to offset the rapid decrease in capture fisheries (Valladão et al., 2018; Zhao et al., 2024).

When there was a significant decrease in global AFPS, the percentage of countries maintaining positive AFCS remained at 68.4%, with no significant change in global AFCS. Among them, the proportion of countries scoring ≥ 1 marginally declined by 4.5%, while 0.5 points increased by 15.3%; and the proportions of countries scoring 2 and 4 points nearly doubled (Figs. 2 and 3). The main factor maintaining this pattern of global consumption increases and stability improvement is likely the transformation of supply patterns other than aquatic food production. Around the 1990s, global trade began to develop vigorously, and the processing, transportation and storage technologies of aquatic products gradually matured, resulting in a rapid increase of the trade volume (FAO, 2020, 2022). Aquatic foods have been among the most highly traded commodities in the global food system and are becoming increasingly globalized (Bellmann et al., 2016; Gephart and Pace, 2015). As a result, the observed overall global AFPS has declined significantly while the AFCS has not (Fig. 3c, d). Continentally, there was a significant decrease in Africa’s consumption scores, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. In contrast, Asia exhibited a significant increase in consumption scores, which are significant at the 0.1 significance level (Fig. 3d and Supplementary Table 3). In recent decades, Africa’s aquatic food demand has grown faster than supply, resulting in an increase in the import share of consumption from 16% in 1970 to 39% in 2017 as production from domestic fish capture has either stagnated or been exported (Liverpool-Tasie et al., 2021; Naylor et al., 2021b; Zhao et al., 2024). While trade has increased the overall per capita consumption and the quality of aquatic foods in Africa (Zhao et al., 2024), our findings suggest that it has not reversed the declining comprehensive consumption trend in African countries—a phenomenon from which Asian countries have significantly benefited.

The globalization of fishery products is indeed playing a significant role in shaping the harvesting and use of aquatic foods (Nash et al., 2022; Naylor et al., 2021b; Xu et al., 2020). This is evident in the notable overall increase in the positive disparity between AFCS and AFPS, indicating that a growing number of countries are relying on trade to boost aquatic food consumption and stability, particularly in Europe, North America, and South America (Fig. 4). The increase in international trade of aquatic food is generally believed to weaken the importance of where aquatic food is produced (Béné et al., 2010; Nash et al., 2022). For instance, many developed countries (e.g., USA and UK) import substantial quantities of farmed aquatic food to compensate for the lack of domestic production (Naylor et al., 2021b; Shamshak et al., 2019). Meanwhile, the rapidly increasing contribution of aquaculture to global aquatic food supply is always obscured by the rhetoric on sustainability and international trade (Garlock et al., 2022). Aquaculture production growth has met and stimulated the increase in fish demand and will continue to do so, offering in many cases healthier and more environmentally sustainable alternatives to meat consumption (Garlock et al., 2020; Gephart et al., 2021; Golden et al., 2021). Despite the important progress attained in research on aquatic food production, consumption and trade, significant challenges persist in achieving a comprehensive understanding of the outcomes of aquatic food trade (Asche et al., 2015; Gephart and Pace, 2015; Xu et al., 2020). Our results suggest that the rapid increase in global aquaculture production coupled the volume of trade has sustained recent growth and improved stability in the consumption trend of aquatic products worldwide.

To date, stagnant or declining marine and freshwater catches and the absence of food-oriented fisheries management poses challenges for wild fish for food security in many low-income countries (Béné et al., 2015; Bennett et al., 2021; Lotze et al., 2019). Our results suggest that there are still 22 countries with current AFCS ≤ -1 and declining or unchanged trends between two periods (Supplementary Table 5). Most of these countries are located in Sub-Saharan Africa and deserve particular attention, especially those with significantly low per capita consumption of aquatic foods, such as Botswana, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Madagascar, Réunion, Somalia, and Tanzania (Supplementary Table 5). Therefore, advancing aquaculture and trade in regions with high rates of malnutrition and food insecurity, especially Sub-Saharan Africa, is important for maintaining and improving access to aquatic foods (Chan et al., 2019; Garlock et al., 2022; Koehn et al., 2022; Marin et al., 2024). Meanwhile, countries experiencing rapid declines in both production and consumption scores should also be cause for concern, especially Bahrain, Cuba, French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Kenya, Madagascar, Senegal, Somalia, and Tanzania (Supplementary Fig. 2).

Furthermore, our findings indicate that changes in aquatic food production and consumption scores in most of the countries often accompany dual shifts in slope (sign and magnitude of the change) and stability (Supplementary Figs. 3 and 4). This not only suggests the importance of considering stability in futural country-level trend assessments but also demonstrates the breadth of insight our assessment framework can bring about. For example, an increase in AFPS between periods for a country transitioning from a situation of decrease to a positive but unstable trend in production (AFPS from negative value to 1 or 3) signals that the country has increased production levels but has not yet consolidated them, showing ups and downs over time (e.g., Angola, Northern Mariana Islands, and Saudi Arabia). On the other hand, countries showing a transition from negative or unchanged unstable trends of consumption to positive stable ones (AFCS from negative values to 4) signals that they have reached maturity in their supply capacity, making it resilient and stable against external changes (e.g., Djibouti, Lebanon, Nicaragua, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam) (Supplementary Fig. 2 and Supplementary Data 2). In recent decades, factors such as rapid population growth, climate change, and overfishing have posed threats to the increase, stability, and sustainability of the aquatic food supply (Barange et al., 2018; García-Oliveira et al., 2022; Maire et al., 2021). Thus, addressing the issue of inconsistent trends in global aquatic food consumption remains a global challenge of regional importance. Overall, this study provides another aspect of evidence of the positive effects of trade on global aquatic food consumption. We believe that aquaculture, coupled with fairer trade, can play a critical role in the global shift toward more sustainable and stable food systems and healthy diets to address multiple forms of food insecurity.

Author Contributions Statement

K.Z. and J.X. conceived the idea. S.D.G. contributed to the study design. K.Z., S.D.G., M.Z. and J.X. contributed to the acquisition and analysis of data. K.Z., and J.G.M. contributed to the interpretation of results. K.Z., J.X., M.Z. and J.G.M. wrote and edited the manuscript.

Competing Interests

The authors have no financial or competing interests to declare relevant to this article.

Correspondence and requests for materials

should be addressed to K.Z., M.Z. or J.X.

Author Contribution

Acknowledgement

K.Z. was supported by the Postdoctoral Fellowship Program of CPSF (grant no. GZC20241874) and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (grant no. 2024M753437). J.X. acknowledges the support received from the International Cooperation Project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (grant no. 152342KYSB20190025), the National Natural Science Foundations of China (grant no. 31872687), and the National Key R&D Program of China (grant no. 2018YFD0900904).

Data Availability

The raw data used in this study are publicly available (see Methods). The processed data generated in this study are either included in the Supplementary Information or available in the figshare repository (https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.26142931).

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Trade coupled with aquaculture is sustaining growth and improving stability in global aquatic food supply

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Abstract

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Introduction

Methods

Data collection

Trend assessment framework

Statistical analysis

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Global trends in production and consumption

Temporal differences in production and consumption trends

Differences between consumption and production trends

Discussion

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Author Contributions Statement

Competing Interests

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Acknowledgement

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References

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