Globally the majority of commercial fisheries have experienced dramatic declines in stock and catch. Likewise, projections for many subsistence fisheries in the tropics indicate a dramatic decline is looming in the coming decades. In the Pacific Islands coastal fisheries provide basic subsistence needs for millions of people. A decline in fish catch would therefore have profound impacts on the health and livelihoods of these coastal communities.

Today, fish is recognized as a global superfood, providing nutrients and micronutrients that are essential to cognitive and physical development, especially in children, and is an important part of a healthy diet. Globally, 3 billion people rely on fish for almost 20% of their animal protein. And demand for fish is increasing. Projections suggest that we will have a 68–78 million metric ton shortfall of fish by 2030. This will be especially acute in sub-Saharan Africa, where aquaculture has yet to fully develop and where fish consumption is projected to decline.

Since 1961, global per capita fish consumption has nearly doubled. Much of the increase has been due to aquaculture. Bangladesh, the world’s eighth largest fish producing country, has been part of this transformation. Despite having vitamin A supplementation and fortification programs, the prevalence of inadequate vitamin A intake (IVAI) in Bangladesh is very high, estimated to be 60%. The promotion of a small indigenous fish, high in vitamin A- mola carplet - offers a promising food-based approach to improving vitamin A status of the 98% of Bangladeshis who eat fish.

This report summarizes the results of a systematic effort to explore possible futures for aquaculture and fisheries in Indonesia. The work described is part of a larger effort that seeks to develop a shared vision for the sectors that 1) aligns public and private investments to foster growth and economic sustainability; 2) reduces environmental impacts and improves efficiency; 3) increases access by small and medium enterprises to the financial and technical assistance necessary to transition to more sustainable practices.

Aquaculture is the fastest-growing food production sector globally, with production projected to double within the next 15–20 years. Future growth of aquaculture is essential to providing sustainable supplies of fish in national, regional and global fish food systems; creating jobs; and maintaining fish at affordable levels for resource-poor consumers. To ensure that the anticipated growth of aquaculture remains both economically and ecologically sustainable, we need to better understand the likely patterns of growth, as well as the opportunities and challenges, that these trends present.

Plots of Rn, the goodness-of-fit index of teh ELEFAN I program versus K can be used jointly with fixed values of the other growth parameters to identify "optimum values" of K. This is here illustrated using data on wahoo (Acanthocybium solandri, Fam. Scombridae) from St. Lucia, West India.

The CGIAR Research Program on Aquatic Agricultural Systems (AAS) seeks to reduce poverty and improve food security for the millions of small-scale fishers and farmers who depend on the world’s floodplains, deltas and coasts. AAS combines more conventional approaches for introducing and scaling technical innovations, such as applied research and training, with approaches that foster innovation and promote institutional and policy change.

Gender inequality constrains the real and potential capacity of women farmers to successfully adapt their farming practices in the face of climate risks or to develop stronger, more diversified livelihood portfolios that would enhance their and their families’ future resilience to social or environmental shocks.

Key contributing factors to undernutrition in low-income countries, including Bangladesh, are low dietary diversity in the diets of women and low nutrient density of traditional complementary foods (CFs) for infants and young children. Several plant-based processed CFs have been developed in Bangladesh, however, all have required fortification with vitamins and minerals to achieve desired nutrient densities. There are few examples in the literature of a combined approach using animal source foods (with the exception of milk) in processed food products targeted at the first 1000 days.

Genetic improvement through selective breeding has been used for millennia on crops and livestock, but up until the 1980s, little had been done to utilize this process for farmed fish. In response to the inadequate supply of tilapia seed and the deteriorating performance of the fish in many aquaculture systems in Asia, WorldFish and partners began the Genetic Improvement of Farmed Tilapia (GIFT) project to develop a faster-growing strain of Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) that was suitable for both small-scale and commercial aquaculture.