Substitution of inland fisheries with aquaculture and chicken undermines human nutrition in the Peruvian Amazon

Abstract

With declining capture fisheries production, maintaining nutrient supplies largely hinges on substituting wild fish with economically comparable farmed animals. Although such transitions are increasingly commonplace across global inland and coastal communities, their nutritional consequences are unknown. Here, using human demographic and health information, and fish nutrient composition data from the Peruvian Amazon, we show that substituting wild inland fisheries with chicken and aquaculture has the potential to exacerbate iron deficiencies and limit essential fatty acid supplies in a region already experiencing high prevalence of anaemia and malnutrition. Substituting wild fish with chicken, however, can increase zinc and protein supplies. Chicken and aquaculture production also increase greenhouse gas emissions, agricultural land use and eutrophication. Thus, policies that enable access to wild fisheries and their sustainable management while improving the quality, diversity and environmental impacts of farmed species will be instrumental in ensuring healthy and sustainable food systems.

Full text

Articles
https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-021-00242-8
1Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA. 2Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, Cornell
University, Ithaca, NY, USA. 3Population Medicine and Diagnostic Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA. 4Independent researcher, Florahome, FL,
USA. 5Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA. 6Wildlife Conservation Society, Iquitos, Peru. 7US Geological Survey,
New York Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA.
✉e-mail: s.heilpern@cornell.edu
Increasing food security while minimizing environmental deg-
radation is one of the greatest sustainability challenges facing
humanity1. Fisheries are at the centre of this challenge for their
role in both transforming aquatic ecosystems and in providing mil-
lions of people across the world with a major source of key macro-
and micronutrients2. Yet fish catch is stagnating and many of the
world’s fisheries are exploited beyond sustainable levels3. Strategies
to supplement the contribution of fisheries to population nutri-
tion partially hinge on finding substitutes for wild fish, particularly
with economically comparable animal foods, such as farm-raised
fish and chicken4,5. Animal production farming, however, is most
often characterized by low species diversity cultivated for their eco-
nomic rather than their nutritional potential6. Furthermore, farmed
species contribute to greenhouse gas emissions, eutrophication of
waterways and land conversion7. Although the environmental costs
of farmed foods are well established1,8, the nutritional implications
of substituting wild fisheries with farmed species, such as chicken
and aquaculture, have not been widely quantified.
Here we analyse the nutritional consequences of substituting
wild inland fish with chicken and aquaculture in Loreto, in the
Peruvian Amazon. As in many other inland and coastal regions,
Loreto’s population is heavily dependent on diverse capture fisher-
ies but is rapidly transitioning to a less diverse set of farmed animal
foods. This transition is concentrated on chicken and aquaculture
species, which are considered less financially and environmentally
costly than other farmed animals such as livestock7. Wild fish har-
vests in Loreto have remained relatively constant but are showing
signs of overexploitation9. In contrast, between 2010 and 2016,
chicken production increased from 19,628 to 32,671 t, and aqua-
culture from 642 to 1,136 t10,11. These patterns reflect global trends,
where growth in chicken and aquaculture production has outpaced
that of capture fisheries, particularly in developing countries12.
Further mirroring these global patterns, aquaculture production
in Loreto is low diversity, with four species (Prochilodus nigricans,
Brycon sp., Colossoma macropomum and Arapaima gigas) account-
ing for over 98% of regional farmed fish production. Although
expanding chicken and aquaculture production is driven by myriad
factors, including human population growth, shifting dietary pref-
erences and stagnating wild fish production, governmental policies
in particular, typically supported by multilateral institutions, such
as the World Bank, are incentivizing dietary shifts from wild fish
to chicken and aquaculture13. Although these policies are often
designed to mitigate food insecurity, whether these alternatives to
wild fish undermine or support nutrition has yet to be determined.
Using human demographic and health information, and animal
nutrient composition data from Loreto (Supplementary Data 1), we
examined the nutritional overlap between wild and common farm
species, and employed simulation models to estimate how substi-
tuting wild fish with chicken and aquaculture affects the supply
of animal-derived nutrients to Loreto’s urban population (that is,
protein, iron, zinc, calcium and omega-3 fatty acids—α-linolenic
acid (ALA), eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic
acid (DHA)). Nutrient supplies were estimated as the number of
people, scaled to Loreto’s population age structure, meeting their
annual reference nutrient intakes (RNIs), or the amount required to
ensure nutritional needs are met for a given nutrient as established
by the World Health Organization14. In Loreto, 43.3% of children
under 5 yr are iron deficient and 25.3% are chronically malnour-
ished, or stunted; and 22.4% of women of reproductive age are iron
deficient15. Thus, beyond considering how adjustments to food sup-
ply might exacerbate existing nutritional gaps, we further discuss
our results in the context of other environmental and food security
Substitution of inland fisheries with aquaculture
and chicken undermines human nutrition in the
Peruvian Amazon
Sebastian A. Heilpern 1,2 ✉ , Kathryn Fiorella 3, Carlos Cañas 4, Alexander S. Flecker5, Luis Moya6,
Shahid Naeem1, Suresh A. Sethi 7, Maria Uriarte1 and Ruth DeFries1
With declining capture fisheries production, maintaining nutrient supplies largely hinges on substituting wild fish with econom-
ically comparable farmed animals. Although such transitions are increasingly commonplace across global inland and coastal
communities, their nutritional consequences are unknown. Here, using human demographic and health information, and fish
nutrient composition data from the Peruvian Amazon, we show that substituting wild inland fisheries with chicken and aqua-
culture has the potential to exacerbate iron deficiencies and limit essential fatty acid supplies in a region already experiencing
high prevalence of anaemia and malnutrition. Substituting wild fish with chicken, however, can increase zinc and protein sup-
plies. Chicken and aquaculture production also increase greenhouse gas emissions, agricultural land use and eutrophication.
Thus, policies that enable access to wild fisheries and their sustainable management while improving the quality, diversity and
environmental impacts of farmed species will be instrumental in ensuring healthy and sustainable food systems.
NATURE FOOD | VOL 2 | MARCH 2021 | 192–197 | www.nature.com/natfood
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