99
6 Food Security in the Context of Fisheries and Aquaculture…
Conduct for Responsible Fisheries (CCRF) and its many Technical Guidelines
(FAO 1995b ; available at www.fao.org ); for example, the Marine Stewardship
Council (MSC; www.msc.org ). There is a strong relationship between increasing
economic welfare and increasing consumption of animal protein. This requires that
more and more grain equivalents be used to feed livestock (including farmed fi sh)
rather than to feed people directly (Fresco and Rabbinge 1997 ) . There are, however,
strong global, national and local movements towards making responsible dietary
choices for food security and for the natural environment.
It can hardly be called irresponsible to eat well and to enjoy eating some animal
protein, but a more vegetarian diet is indeed more earth-friendly, more sustainable,
and therefore more conducive to food security at all levels. Goodland proposed a
food conversion ef fi ciency tax,
In order to reduce food wastage and to improve health and food availability…The least
ef fi cient converters (pork, beef) would be highly taxed; more ef fi cient converters (poultry,
eggs, dairy) would be moderately taxed. Most ef fi cient converters (ocean fi sh) would be
taxed lowest. Grains for human food would not be taxed ( 1997 , 189)
Goodland’s tax-friendly stance on ocean fi sh was too simplistic, as many of them
feed at high trophic levels, as carnivores. He omitted the products of aquaculture
from his tax rankings, and considered aquaculture as having two extremes: low
productivity/low impact, fed with autotrophs; and high productivity/high input
energy/high impact, fed with manufactured feeds. He concluded that even the latter
“can be more productive and at much less environmental cost than its competitor,
livestock if grain inputs only are counted. If fossil energy and water costs are
included, (high productivity) aquaculture is not competitive” (Goodland 1997 , 193).
Many, including the present author, would now fi nd this to be too simplistic a view
of the huge diversity and potentials, for good and ill, of responsible and irresponsible aquaculture (see below). On the broader front, whereas Goodland’s tax proposals would surely have been politically impossible in 1997, some of them might be
possible now, given the increasing public and private acceptance of painful earthfriendly measures such greenhouse gas emissions.
Dietary choices are major issues in attempting to balance sovereign preferences
and sustainability. Norton et al. ( 1998 ) discussed this, considering three rank ordered
goals of ecological economics (ecological sustainability, fair distribution and allocative ef fi ciency), relationships between preference change and price change, and the
extents to which attempts to in fl uence individual preferences might be undemocratic. They concluded that: “Actively seeking to in fl uence preferences is not inconsistent with a democratic society (and that)…in order to operationalize real
democracy, a two-tiered decision structure must be used… in order to eliminate
‘preference inconsistencies’ between the short term and long term and between
local and global goals” (Norton et al. 1998 , 209). Their main point was that individual sovereignty is exercised in achieving democratic consensus on the broad and
long term goals of society and that those broad goals can then, still democratically,
“limit and direct preferences at lower levels” (Norton et al. 1998 , 209). For example,
overconsumption of animal fats and sugars and under-consumption of fruit, vegetables, and fi sh, pose huge and costly health problems, not only in af fl uent western
6 Food Security in the Context of Fisheries and Aquaculture…
Conduct for Responsible Fisheries (CCRF) and its many Technical Guidelines
(FAO 1995b ; available at www.fao.org ); for example, the Marine Stewardship
Council (MSC; www.msc.org ). There is a strong relationship between increasing
economic welfare and increasing consumption of animal protein. This requires that
more and more grain equivalents be used to feed livestock (including farmed fi sh)
rather than to feed people directly (Fresco and Rabbinge 1997 ) . There are, however,
strong global, national and local movements towards making responsible dietary
choices for food security and for the natural environment.
It can hardly be called irresponsible to eat well and to enjoy eating some animal
protein, but a more vegetarian diet is indeed more earth-friendly, more sustainable,
and therefore more conducive to food security at all levels. Goodland proposed a
food conversion ef fi ciency tax,
In order to reduce food wastage and to improve health and food availability…The least
ef fi cient converters (pork, beef) would be highly taxed; more ef fi cient converters (poultry,
eggs, dairy) would be moderately taxed. Most ef fi cient converters (ocean fi sh) would be
taxed lowest. Grains for human food would not be taxed ( 1997 , 189)
Goodland’s tax-friendly stance on ocean fi sh was too simplistic, as many of them
feed at high trophic levels, as carnivores. He omitted the products of aquaculture
from his tax rankings, and considered aquaculture as having two extremes: low
productivity/low impact, fed with autotrophs; and high productivity/high input
energy/high impact, fed with manufactured feeds. He concluded that even the latter
“can be more productive and at much less environmental cost than its competitor,
livestock if grain inputs only are counted. If fossil energy and water costs are
included, (high productivity) aquaculture is not competitive” (Goodland 1997 , 193).
Many, including the present author, would now fi nd this to be too simplistic a view
of the huge diversity and potentials, for good and ill, of responsible and irresponsible aquaculture (see below). On the broader front, whereas Goodland’s tax proposals would surely have been politically impossible in 1997, some of them might be
possible now, given the increasing public and private acceptance of painful earthfriendly measures such greenhouse gas emissions.
Dietary choices are major issues in attempting to balance sovereign preferences
and sustainability. Norton et al. ( 1998 ) discussed this, considering three rank ordered
goals of ecological economics (ecological sustainability, fair distribution and allocative ef fi ciency), relationships between preference change and price change, and the
extents to which attempts to in fl uence individual preferences might be undemocratic. They concluded that: “Actively seeking to in fl uence preferences is not inconsistent with a democratic society (and that)…in order to operationalize real
democracy, a two-tiered decision structure must be used… in order to eliminate
‘preference inconsistencies’ between the short term and long term and between
local and global goals” (Norton et al. 1998 , 209). Their main point was that individual sovereignty is exercised in achieving democratic consensus on the broad and
long term goals of society and that those broad goals can then, still democratically,
“limit and direct preferences at lower levels” (Norton et al. 1998 , 209). For example,
overconsumption of animal fats and sugars and under-consumption of fruit, vegetables, and fi sh, pose huge and costly health problems, not only in af fl uent western