Financial Express | By Ashok Sharma October 5, 2003
The developing countries, particularly in Asia are likely to over exploit their marine resources in the next two decades to meet the needs of global consumers. The remaining one-quarter of the world marine wild fisheries that are not fully exploited (all of which are in the tropics) will become more heavily fished.
Fish will become about one-fifth more expensive relative to other kinds of meat by 2020. The global prices of high value finfish and crustaceans will increase by 15 per cent, Fishmeal and fish oil prices will rise by 18 per cent and will be 12 per cent more expensive relative to vegetable meals (for animal feed) and 20 per cent more expensive relative to poultry. Prices of mollusks and low value food fish are forecast to increase marginally. Although China, India and Latin America are projected to be net exporters, only in case of Latin America net exports are forecast to represent a significant share of domestic production through 2020.
A study jointly conducted by the US-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the WorldFish Center in an outlook for fish to 2020 has noticed that net fish exports on a global scale has already shifted from North to the South and will intensify in the years to come. The study also says that South-South trade will become increasingly important with the further emegence of urban middle classes. The study expressing concerns over environmental security and possible depletion of marine resources, suggests forward-looking policy discourse, research and technology development.
The IFPRI-WorldFish Center study is relevant to the current discussions in WTO for pressuring national governments to implement zero tariff regime for imports of marine products. Incidentally, fisheries and marine products are not covered under the WTO agreement on agriculture (AoA), but under non-agriculture market access (NAMA).
Then IFPRI-WorldFish Center study, however, puts the blame for the future chaotic situation on the developing countries by saying that the demand for marine products would increase on account of emergence of urban middle classes and rapid population growth in these countries. The study has defended the developed countries by saying that the fish consumption in these countries has stagnated between 1985 and 1997 as the population remained stable. The study has made only passing references to inland water fisheries, though several experts have already predicted a growing demand for this food on account of it being more hygenic and environment friendly than seafoods.
The study suggests that per capita consumption of seafood is likely to increase in most of the developing countries in the baseline, although it will remain unchanged in sub-Saharan Africa and in the developed countries. As per the study in a possible ecological collapse scenario, per capita consumption can decline from 17.1 kg under baseline scenario to 14.2 kg. The ower Chinese output scenario can lead to a decline in per capita consumption of 1 kg, but mostly because of its effects on Chinese consumption.
The global food fish output is projected to grow by 40 per cent from 1997 at an average annual rate of 1.5 per cent. The production share of developing countries would rise from 73 per cent in 1979 to to 79 per cent in 2020 and China would account for about 5 of the 6 percentage points in the increase, the study says.
The study further says that the developing countries, taken as a whole, will continue to be net importers of low value food fish and net exporters of high value food fish. Nonetheless, many developing countries will begin to import high value food fish. China, for instance, is projected to become a significant net importer of crustaceans by 2020.
Given the growing importance of developing countries in both production and consumption of global fish, the study says that the fish sector would seem to offer important opportunitites for people in poorer countries to increase their income by producing fish and to improve and diversify their diets by further increasing their fish consumption.Financial Express:
