June 21, 2022 — Seafood plays a vital part in global food security and nutrition, yet only half of the countries with a nutrition strategy identify fish consumption as a key objective in their public policies, Manuel Barange, the director of the Fisheries and Aquaculture Division of the Food, and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) said in his opening keynote address at the Blue Food Innovation Summit in London, U.K. on 14 June, 2022.
In his address, “Realizing the full potential of the blue food economy,” Barange said there are around 32,000 different species of fish in the world’s lakes, rivers, and oceans, “forming part of a valuable ecosystem. The biomass of fish is twelve times that of humans,” he said, making them a readily available source of food for the entire planet, especially impoverished, remote areas of the world.