Imported fish can provide nutrients to food-insecure countries. But at what cost?

Developing countries get more nutrients per dollar from seafood imports, but equity, access and local food security remain concerns

Global trade tends to circle back to one question: Is it worth it?

Is it worth hauling seafood from the waters of one continent to transport it to another? Is it worth the environmental impact? And what about the people whose waters are fished on behalf of people thousands of miles away? Is their intake of calories and nutrients potentially sacrificed?

A new study found that, on a bang-for-your-buck basis, developing countries get more nutrients per dollar from seafood imports than wealthier, developed countries. The results surprised the researchers.

“We already knew that developing countries were exporting seafood that was more valuable than the seafood they were importing,” said Martin Smith, study author and professor of Environmental Economics in the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University. “The concern was that the valuable seafood they were importing had fewer […] comparable nutrients, but the lower prices for imports mean more nutrition per dollar.”

However, the global food system is more complicated than just a nutrient-per-dollar ratio.

“We don’t believe trade is bad,” said Wanjiku Gichohi, senior scientist and impact area lead in nutrition and public health at WorldFish – a nonprofit research organization that’s part of the world’s largest agricultural innovation network, CGIAR. “It’s how do you make it equitable, fair and just? Particularly for groups we work with.”

Nutrients in imported fish for developing countries

In the study published in Nature Communications, researchers analyzed data from 2015 to 2021, drawing on two major sources.

The first was the United Nations Comtrade database, which tracks global trade in both wild-caught and farmed seafood. The second one came from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, which provides detailed nutritional information categorized by seafood species and product type.

These databases allowed researchers to analyze 266 unique seafood products, representing 90 percent of the global seafood trade. In total, this gave them 267,505 records on bilateral trade to examine. Each importing country was then classified as either developed or developing, based on several socioeconomic factors.

“The study was designed to see if lower-income countries received more or less […] nutrients per dollar they pay through importing seafood at the international seafood market,” said Marine Yaqin Lui, first author on the study and environmental economist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI).

Researchers found that developing countries pay less for the nutrition in seafood imports than developed ones, and that they’re getting more protein, fatty acids, iron and vitamin B12. One example: a pound of fresh salmon and a pound of frozen salmon contain approximately the same amount of protein. But because developing countries pay less for frozen fish, they essentially get more protein per dollar.

The results were somewhat surprising for Lui, who grew up in mainland China, but it does make sense when framed within how different countries consume seafood.

“China is eating so many different species…the name of the species wasn’t that important to us. We are more attracted by the flavor, and we like to cook whole fish. We weren’t so discouraged by the inconvenience of cooking and cleaning and things like that,” Lui said. “So where in the U.S. there are so many fewer choices, and the focus is so concentrated on only a few species.”

Smith added that these findings could have wide-reaching implications, in terms of both trade, and how seafood is marketed directly.

“For people who are really interested in, ‘How do I add a little bit of seafood to my diet?’” he said, adding in ways that won’t destroy a household budget. “That can be something that people can think about domestically in the U.S. The results can also have the seafood trade thinking about, ‘How do we market our seafood to other countries?’ For a lot of people, seafood is very nutritious and getting into the nuances of how much do you actually have to spend to get that nutritional bang for your buck?”

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Beyond dollars and cents, for nutrients

These findings alone, cautioned Gichohi, shouldn’t be taken as a green light for more intense seafood trade in developing countries. The value of importing and exporting seafood is more than just a simple nutrient-to-dollar equation.

Other factors matter too, including whether the seafood imported into a developing country is what local residents actually want to eat.

“Is whatever seafood they’re importing in exchange […] culturally acceptable, or are they just being forced to import that because of what is being prioritized as trade?” she asked.

Gichohi also raised concerns about where that imported seafood ultimately ends up. Seafood destined for export may be something that coastal communities traditionally eat.

“Are these nutrients still ending up with populations that other seafood has been exported from who are also depending on this same seafood for their nutrients, not just protein but also micronutrients?” she said. “Or is it also ending up in urban areas that already have sources of micronutrients?”

Gichohi pointed to a 2019 study published in Nature that found that, for countries with nutrient intake deficiencies, nutrients available in marine finfish catches exceed the dietary requirements for populations that live within 100 kilometers (62 miles) of the coast. Even a fraction of current landings, the study noted, could be particularly impactful for children under 5 years of age. In other words, local fish-based strategies could help improve food and nutrition security.

But in practice, that potential is often lost. Gichohi cited a 2019 Greenpeace report that highlighted how in West Africa – where fish make up about 70 percent of animal protein consumed – small pelagic fish and other species are diverted to factories to be turned into fishmeal and fish oil for export.

Not only does this remove a vital local food source from West African nations, but it has also driven the three main fish species used for fishmeal and fish oil into overfishing – affecting what people can eat, regardless of what seafood gets imported back in.

“There is a need for more granularity on the data,” Gichohi said, referring to a more recent Nature Communications study. “For example, are imported foods just canned products available and accessible only to those in cities and high-income areas? Or do these trickle down to the people from whom these highly nutritious foods have been exported from?”

It’s not only about who gets access to imported seafood, but also about what happens to the money made from exports.

“Does the income from export trickle down to these communities?” asked Gichohi. “Even if they don’t [have] access to the nutrient dense fish [being] imported back, are they still able to substitute with equally nutrient-dense options because of their (hopefully) increased income?”