Environmental uncertainty, regulatory risks may hit fish output: Report

The fisheries and aquaculture sectors will continue to bear the brunt of significant uncertainties over the next decade, including challenges related to the environment, policy changes and effectiveness of governance, says OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2023-32.

While much of the production growth is expected to come from aquaculture, shifting government policies, particularly related to environmental impacts could alter the distribution and rate of growth. Any policy shifts in China, the world’s largest producer of both aquaculture and capture fisheries, will have significant impacts on global production and the 15th Five-Year plan 2026-30 represents a source uncertainty for the second half of the projection period.

Climate change will have both direct and indirect impacts on both capture fisheries and aquaculture and is perhaps one of the largest sources of uncertainty for fish production over the next decade, which is difficult to capture in the projections. The direct impacts of climate change on capture fisheries include the shifting geographic distribution of stocks, and changes to species composition, turnover, abundance and diversity in marine ecosystems. Climate change will not only impact the resources available to fishers, but also complicate the job of fisheries managers, and increase the number of shared stocks heightening the need for co-operative management regimes.

On aquaculture, climate-driven changes in temperature, precipitation, ocean acidification, incidence and extent of hypoxia and sea level rise, availability of wild seed as well as reducing precipitation leading to increasing competition for freshwater, amongst others, are expected to have long-term impacts. The impacts of climate change will not be evenly distributed, with larger changes expected in tropical regions when compared to temperate zones.

Climate change also creates several regulatory risks for both capture fisheries and aquaculture. As governments come under increasing pressure to reduce GHG emissions from the food system and transition to net zero, the prices of key energy inputs into capture fisheries (e.g. diesel fuel) and aquaculture (e.g. electricity) may change altering the profitability of some activities, with impacts on the types of production and the structure of the fleet.

The impact of those policies on the agricultural markets is another source of uncertainty. The risks posed by the transition to net zero depends on both the energy intensity of production and the nature of the policies put in place, making them both hard to predict and heterogenous across countries and fleet segments.

To help governments understand these challenges and share best practices the OECD has two new initiatives: one related to the impacts of climate change on policy making for capture fisheries and, another looking at the role of aquaculture can play in meeting the challenges faced by food systems globally. To help vulnerable states mitigate the often-devastating effects of climate change, the FAO Blue Transformation can provide a pathway for hunger reduction and sustainable management of oceans, seas, and marine resources through reconciling environmental sustainability, food security and livelihood priorities.

The Blue Transformation focuses on more efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable blue food systems, from both capture fisheries and aquaculture, promoted through improved policies and programmes for integrated science based management, technological innovation, and private-sector engagement.

It has three main objectives: sustainable aquaculture expansion and intensification; effective management of all fisheries; and upgraded value chains. Achieving the objectives of Blue Transformation requires holistic and adaptive approaches that consider the complex interaction between global and local components in food systems and support multi-stakeholder interventions to secure and enhance livelihoods, foster equitable distribution of benefits and provide for an adequate use and conservation of biodiversity and ecosystems.

In 2022, the international community agreed binding discipline on fisheries subsidies at the WTO, and its application represents another source of uncertainty for capture fisheries production. The agreement inter alia prohibits subsidies to fishing activity on overfished stocks, to illegal unreported and unregulated fishing and, to fishing on the high seas outside the area of competence of an RFMO.

An analysis of government support to fisheries presented in the OECD Review of Fisheries 2022 suggests that over 60% of support (2018-20 average) presents a high or moderate risk of encouraging unsustainable fishing in the absence of effective management. This suggests that when the WTO agreement enters into force (once two-thirds of members have accepted the agreement), the impacts on capture fisheries production may be significant if governments are required to alter their subsidy programmes to ensure compliance.

The agreement also contains provisions for adopting more comprehensive disciplines within four years of the initial agreement entering into force, potentially resulting in another, more stringent, set of disciplines being applied in the projection period, introducing further uncertainties.

Finally, from a trade perspective, future policy decisions could impact the projections. For example, while sanctions remain in place on Russia following the invasion of Ukraine, any changes to this situation are difficult to predict and may impact the expected trading relationships.

Ongoing tensions between the United States and China, may have increasing impacts on the trade in fisheries products, particularly if trade and fishing activities in the Pacific are affected. The imposition of sanctions, tariffs and trade restrictions over the long term could alter established markets, leading to reduction in trade and higher consumer prices in some regions.