Foro Global sobre Seguridad Alimentaria y Nutrición (Foro FSN)

Re: Desarrollo agrícola sostenible para la seguridad alimentaria y la nutrición, incluyendo el papel de la ganadería - Consulta elecrónica del HLPE para establecer las bases del estudio

Fisheries and Aquaculture DepartmentFisheries and Aquaculture Department

FAOFAO

FI Comments on HLPE activity - Sustainable agricultural development for food security and nutrition, including the role of livestock - E-consultation to set the track of the study

  1. It is not clear if “fish” or “aquatic animal production” is fully recognized under “livestock” in the document and the process.
  2. Considering the role of fish in nutrition and health as well as a source of animal-based-proteins for consumption, fish or aquatic animals should be clearly mentioned and considered in the HLPE process.
  • Fish and other aquatic products (e.g. seaweed) have significant contributions to food security and nutrition. This has been well recognized in many fora, including the HLPE consultation on “The Role of Sustainable Fisheries and Aquaculture for Food Security and Nutrition”.
  • Fish or aquatic animals are considered having much lower environmental footprints in production compared to the terrestrial animals.
  • Aquaculture, a.k.a. fish farming, involves food producing activities similar to livestock production. Indeed, while aquaculture used to be deemed a sub-sector of fisheries, it has been more properly treated by some industry classification systems (e.g. North American Industry Classification System or NAICS) as a component of “Animal production” to which livestock belongs.
  • Aquaculture, which is a much younger food producing industry compared to livestock, can learn a great deal from the successes and failures of sustainable development in livestock.
  1. As suitable sustainable approaches to agriculture (including livestock) tend to differ across regions or countries because of differences in resource endowments, economic development, governance structure, cultural tradition, etc., the study should adopt a regional approach if possible or at least highlight regional or national differences.
  2. Constrained by information and time available to prepare a report on such a broad subject, the study may not be able to cover all relevant themes or answer all relevant questions. Therefore, it would be useful for the study to identify and document information and knowledge gaps and propose future studies to fill in these gaps.
  3. FI should be represented in the Expert Group.