Seafood industry needs to be more involved in global food, climate policy discussions

Editor/Mohamed Shihab

Tom Pickerell is the global director for the World Resources Institute’s Ocean Program and head of the secretariat for the institute’s High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy – a group comprising 18 world leaders working to organize initiatives that promote ocean conservation

Pickerell has over 20 years experience working with the global seafood industry, including at such organizations as the Shellfish Association of Great Britain, the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership, among others. In his present role, he has been engaged in high-level global food policy and climate policy discussions, in which he said the seafood industry’s voice is either completely missing or heavily underrepresented. 

SeafoodSource spoke with Pickerell about the impacts of the seafood industry not having a strong voice in these discussions.

SeafoodSource: What are the risks if the seafood industry is not a part of global discussions centered around how to design the future of food systems in the face of a growing population and climate change?

Pickerell: We are looking at a future food system in a world that will likely be warmer with more frequent, intense weather episodes. In addition, demands for resources continue to rise, resulting in pressure and instability on many key commodity value chains. But, global food policy discussions are overlooking a key opportunity to address these issues that is already available – blue foods. These are foods that are nutrient-dense, often have lower emissions than terrestrial proteins, and support hundreds of millions of jobs, particularly in areas where there are not many other opportunities. Yet, currently, they are missing from discussions about the future of food.

If we can bring blue foods into climate, biodiversity, and nutrition discussions, there's a number of things we can accomplish.

First, we can improve the health and welfare of people. Nutrients that are available in blue foods, such as vitamin B12, zinc, and long-chain omega-3s are not present in many other foods. If we want to be sensible about nutrition plans, particularly in addressing malnutrition, we should be talking about a dietary shift which incorporates these essential micronutrients.

We can also cut emissions associated with food consumption. Many blue foods have lower greenhouse gas emissions than ruminant meats and other land-based animal proteins. Wild-caught blue foods have a minimal footprint, and many aquaculture industries have a much lower footprint than terrestrial animal proteins. Using regenerative methods, mussels, seaweed and non-fed fish aquaculture can even increase water quality, sequester carbon, and create a valuable habitat for a whole food chain.

Most importantly, we can build resilient communities, particularly those on the coast. It’s estimated that 800 million people are dependent on aquatic foods for jobs and income, mainly in areas with few other opportunities.

So, there's an equity value blue foods can bring to future food systems, but this is all at risk if the seafood industry stays on the sidelines when global food and climate policy is developed.

SeafoodSource: How does this gap between blue foods and other proteins show up in policy?

Pickerell: There is a big governance gap. While policies generally recognize the link between aquatic foods and food security, most governance instruments still lack strong integration. 

A review from 2021 of national policies found that 65 percent made some connection, mainly by promoting fisheries and aquaculture for food availability, but only 12 percent showed a high political commitment to blue foods. Continuing to exclude wild-caught and farmed blue foods will lead to diets that are higher in carbon, less nutritious, and have negative impacts on coastal livelihoods. This also perpetuates a fragmented view of food policy and governance that thinks protein on land is good but protein in the sea is out of sight, out of mind.

In climate policy, National Determined Contributions (NDCs) are government or country-level plans that articulate how a nation intends to meet the 2015 Paris Agreement. The World Resources Institute completed an analysis of these plans and found that only 43 NDCs include ocean-based actions in the fisheries subsector and only 20 NDCs include them for aquaculture.

We've launched an initiative with the Ocean Conservancy and the Ocean Climate Platform called the Blue NDC Challenge, which challenges countries to rectify this imbalance. It was launched at this year’s UN Oceans Conference by France and Brazil, with a further six countries joining. This will be a focus effort at the 2025 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 30) and an opportunity for seafood companies to encourage their home countries to promote more seafood-friendly NDCs or show up at COP 30 and advocate for themselves.

SeafoodSource: Where do seafood companies or the industry need to show up?

Pickerell: There are two areas in which seafood companies can think about engaging.

The first area is ocean-related events and programs, and the second area is events and programs that are outside the ocean space but still relevant.

When I first went to the Our Ocean Conference, attendance from the people I know in the seafood realm was incredibly low. There were far more people who were interested in pollution, in marine protected areas, and in biodiversity. So, there's a bit of a disconnect between what I have seen at Seafood Expo North America and Seafood Expo Global, where companies are interested in thinking about sustainability as a differentiator for seafood, but ocean events don't seem to attract many members of the industry where the investment in delivering a healthy, responsible, climate-friendly protein translates into seafood being an ideal input for future food systems.

Both the Our Ocean Conference and the UN Ocean Conference are events where seafood and aquatic food companies can talk about challenges and opportunities in the industry and start building a narrative in the ocean conservation world for the value of blue foods to improving ocean health, human health, coastal community health, and climate.

Global food and climate platforms are the second group. For example, we had the UN Food Systems Summit take place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in June.

The World Resources Institute's Ocean Program participated and held an event on the importance of blue foods in food systems there. It was a great event, but it was clear seafood companies and the industry were underrepresented in these discussions. Worse, there was no concerted effort on behalf of seafood companies or the industry to advocate, as other industries do, for blue food’s role in future food systems.

Other programs that do not directly focus on the ocean but that discuss policy that will affect the seafood industry include the Climate Change COP and the Convention on Biological Diversity COP.  The seafood industry needs to show up at these events, talk about the ocean, and advocate for the contribution that blue foods can make to relevant objectives. There's an ocean pavilion at Climate COP, which is a good venue to get oriented with fellow ocean advocates and efforts, but you also want to be going to the food pavilion to get the word out on blue foods.

Seafood companies also have a valuable opportunity to deepen their engagement with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), particularly beyond the traditional fisheries and aquaculture divisions. FAO’s broader food systems strategy offers a platform to highlight seafood’s role in nutrition, climate resilience, and biodiversity.

To make the most of this, companies should consider attending FAO-led events and dialogues, especially those focused on food systems, climate, and biodiversity, and ensure that blue foods are represented in relevant panels and discussions. It’s also essential for them to elevate social impact stories and showcase how the seafood sector supports small-scale actors, Indigenous communities, and gender equity, all of which are areas where FAO is actively seeking solutions.

SeafoodSource: Are there good resources for seafood companies to get up to speed on the issue?

Pickerell: The High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy has produced a bluepaper called “The Future of Food from the Sea,” which is a good resource that covers a number of the opportunities I mentioned in a bit more detail and how we can realize these opportunities. The Blue Food Assessment is another great overview of the issues and provides facts and figures that back up the importance of blue foods.

The Ocean Program at the World Resources Institute is also starting a project with the Walton Family Foundation to help the industry shift the narrative around blue foods to highlight the essential role they can play in making people, the oceans, and the planet much healthier. We welcome a discussion with interested seafood companies.