1.1 Child Food Insecurity

Throughout Asia, the incidence of under-nutrition among rural children younger than twelve is alarmingly high, and half of them are so under-weight and stunted they are harmed for life (McLean et. al 2009; Saxena 2008).

1.2 Iron Deficiency Anemia

Two-thirds of Asian preschool children and two-thirds of Asian pregnant and lactating women are anemic (McLean et. al 2009; IFPRI 2016). Indeed, iron deficiency anemia is feminized. The incidence of female anemia is severe (impacting 41 percent or more) throughout South and Southeast Asia and high (impacting 30 to 40 percent) throughout East Asia (McLean et. al 2009).⁴ Two-fifths to nearly half the females of Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, and the Philippines suffer from anemia (McLean et. al 2009). This nutritional disease impacts females who reside in Malaysia and Pakistan to about the same degree, even though these countries vary significantly in incidence of poverty and economic growth. China, South Korea and Vietnam are experiencing rapid entry of women into the industrial labor force, but they exhibit female anemia at about the same level as Thailand and Sri Lanka which are much less industrialized. China, Malaysia, Thailand, South Korea and Japan receive moderate to low hunger indexes, but these countries exhibit higher incidence of female anemia than any other food insecurity indicator (see Table 2). In China, for example, the percentage of anemic pregnant women is 2.5 times greater than the percentage of the population that is undernourished.

1.3 Asian Fishery Production and Nutritional Trends

It is quite striking that Asian fisheries that differ sharply in economic growth rates and degrees of industrialization exhibit similar trends with respect to food insecurity indicating that increased trade and prosperity have not solved national hunger problems. In addition to widespread inadequate calorie intake, most Asians secure 60 percent of their calories from carbohydrates (primarily grains), leading to significant shortfalls of protein, iron and other essential nutrients (FAO 2012b: 9, 15–16). As a result, the four most widespread nutritional deficiencies in Asia are inadequate levels of protein, iron, Vitamin A and iodine, shortfalls that are suffered most extremely by rural women and children (ESCAP 2010). In addition to a high incidence of iron deficiency anemia, 72 percent of preschool children and 60 percent of pregnant women exhibit Vitamin A deficiency, the most common cause of blindness and a contributing factor in infant mortality and childhood growth retardation.⁵ In South and Southeast Asia, there is a high incidence of iodine deficiency, the main cause of mental retardation.⁶ Across Asia, the most abundant foods available to address these nutritional deficiencies are fishery derivatives, but current health trends make it clear that a high proportion of Asians are not consuming the seafoods in which their fisheries specialize.

In 2010, Asia accounted for 60.8 percent of the world’s fish that were captured in oceans and coastal waters, 43 percent of fish captured from inland rivers, and 89 percent of aquaculture outputs (FAO 2012d). More than half of the world’s captured fish are produced by our target sixteen Asian fisheries which are among the world’s most significant fishery exporters.⁷ More than 87 percent of people employed in the fisheries sector in 2010 were in Asia, and 97 percent of all fish farmers were Asians. However, thirteen of these fisheries exhibit moderate to alarming hunger indexes (see Table 2), and seven of them are classified by the Food and Agriculture Organization as low-income food-deficient nations. Similarly, fourteen of these Asian fisheries ranked among the top thirty aquaculture producers in the world, but five of these high exporters were food-deficient.⁸

3.1 Fishery Exporting

In 2016, thirteen of these sixteen Asian fisheries ranked among the world’s top fifty exporters (see Table 1). In line with structural adjustment and WTO requirements, they expanded their fishery and food crop exporting since 1985 (FAO 1989, 2012e), even though all of them except Japan have experienced hunger crises during this period. Despite their alarming, serious or moderate hunger indexes, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam attained trade surpluses in exchanges of food commodities. Trade statistics make clear the food insecurity of four countries that are experiencing alarming or serious hunger problems. While China, Japan, and South Korea exchange manufactured goods for food imports, Bangladesh, North Korea, Pakistan, and the Philippines exhibit large food trade deficits. Since 1975, fishery and aquaculture outputs have expanded sufficiently to alleviate many of the region’s nutritional problems (Hersoug 2004: 59), but much of that output has been exported (APFC 2012). Between 1988 and 2002, the value of fishery exports from many developing countries exceeded the value of other agricultural commodities (Eggert and Greaker 2009: 1). Indeed, these sixteen Asian fisheries prioritize seafood exporting because shellfish are more valuable per ton on world markets than agricultural crops (see Figure 5).

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The economic importance of crustacean exports: $US per exported ton of commodities, 2016

SOURCE AND NOTES: ANALYSIS OF EXPORT DATA THAT WERE AGGREGATED FROM UNCOMTRADE DATABASE

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3.2 Threats to Asian Agricultural Production

The food security threats associated with fishery exporting are exacerbated by the elimination of agricultural space. In all the Asian fisheries, national and local governments have stimulated the conversion of croplands and domestic-oriented aquaculture to commercial fishponds (Bailey and Skladany 1991; Primavera 1997; FAO 2004a, 2007). In the face of expansion of commercial fishponds and other nonagricultural demands, expanding cultivated lands for food production is no longer an option in the sixteen Asian fisheries where arable land declined from 0.36 hectares in 1970 to 0.20 in 2011. East and Southeast Asia have suffered a 37 percent decline in arable lands while arable lands dropped 58 percent in South Asia. Moreover, gains from the artificial inputs of the Green Revolution waned in the 1990s, making declining yields per hectare common (ADB 2013: 40–43). To complicate matters, most arable farm lands are not used to cultivate crops for domestic consumption.

When we compare agricultural exports (United Nations 2013) with crop production data (FAO 2012c), it becomes clear that these Asian fisheries prioritize crops for export rather than domestic food security. Fourteen of them allocate more of their agricultural lands to the production of carbohydrates and sugar than to food crops that will address nutritional problems. Grains, sugar cane/beets, bananas, coconuts, and vegetables address some local consumption needs, but these crops are exported at high levels. Only China, Japan, North Korea and South Korea cultivate non-starchy vegetables as one of their three most important crop categories that can be applied toward domestic consumption. Food security is further threatened because less of the agricultural land is allocated to the production of food crops than to nonfoods (see Table 10). For example, food-deficient Sri Lanka allocates a majority of its lands to the production of tea while food-deficient India, Indonesia and the Philippines allocate significant land resources to cultivation of cotton, palm oil, rubber, and tobacco. Moderately food-insecure Malaysia depends on food imports while it utilizes most of its agricultural lands to cultivate palm oil and rubber for export.

3.3 Centrality of Fishery Outputs to Asian Nutrition

Bottom line, there is no significant crop production in any of these Asian fisheries that will offset the losses of protein, iron and other nutrients that result from fishery exporting. Except for Japan and Taiwan, all these fisheries exhibit a moderate to severe incidence of iron deficiency anemia (see Table 2). Fishery products are the resources most readily available that could be locally consumed to overcome their widespread protein, iron and iodine shortfalls (McLean et al. 2009). Table 3 provides a sharp analysis of the threats to Asian food security posed by export of fishery products. When wastage and nonfood uses are taken into account, none of these Asian fisheries produces enough fish to meet domestic needs. In reality, so much fishery output is lost to wastage that there is no latitude for nonfood uses or exports. It is clear, however, that these Asian fisheries are prioritizing exports and nonfood applications over domestic consumption. In 2016, per capita world consumption of fishery commodities rose to 20.3 kilograms. It is reasonable to expect that domestic consumption in these Asian fisheries should exceed that global average, but that is not the case. Eight of the ten Asian fisheries with alarming or serious hunger indexes consumed less than the typical world citizen (see Table 3). Fishery commodities are barely consumed in India, Pakistan and Thailand where they could help to alleviate moderate to alarming hunger indexes. In Bangladesh, Pakistan, North Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and Sri Lanka, domestic consumption per capita is half or less than it was in 1961 (Kent 2018).

Three cautions about methodological flaws are in order with respect to Table 3. First, FAO estimates of nonfoods are low, based primarily on reservations for seeds and feeds at production sites. Indeed, the FAO Food Balance Sheets from which we drew data do not include conversion into nonfoods after leaving the production sites. Second, the FAO has only recently begun to estimate losses at the production sites, but Food Balance Sheets do not estimate fishery wastage after commodities leave the production sites. For that reason, we employed wastage estimates from the most recent research about Asian countries. Third, FAO export numbers are not always reliable, and it is likely that more fish were exported from these Asian territories than the FAO Food Balance Sheets report. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (2012b: 41, 58), nearly 60 percent of the world’s captured and farmed fish are destined for export. Since a majority of the world’s fishery production occurs in these sixteen Asian fisheries, it is likely that the FAO (2012e) national exporting proportions that we used for this table are lower than the actual levels. Indeed, export quantities for these Asian fisheries are often higher in the UN COMTRADE International Trade Statistics database. By repeating these FAO methodological flaws, a majority of analysts who study Asian food security offer optimistic estimates about per capita domestic consumption because they ignore or seriously underestimate exports, nonfood uses and wastage.¹⁰

Table 4 demonstrates that consumption of fishery commodities has declined below FAO estimates. Since the early 1990s, fishery consumption per capita has steadily declined in these Asian fisheries, as exporting has led to rising domestic prices, especially for shellfish (Mulekom et al. 2006: 554–55). By 2010, average Asian per capita fish consumption was much lower than the consumption levels of North Americans and Europeans. Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, Pakistan and Vietnam fall well below average per capita consumption reported by the FAO (2012d) for Asia. Moreover, per capita fish consumption for India and Pakistan is about one-fifth of the average per capita consumption reported by FAO (2012d) for all low-income food-deficient countries. Despite its production and high export levels, Pakistan now exhibits the lowest per capita consumption of fish in the world. Even though India is the seventh top ocean fish producing country (Siar and Kusakabe 2020: 23), most Indians have included very little fish in their diets since the shift to shrimp exporting in the early 1980s. In 1980, the largest peasant fisher’s organization publicly protested against the Indian government’s establishment of a multi-million dollar fishing complex at Bombay, emphasizing the danger of the country’s shift to prioritizing exporting.

The developed world is now making strident demands for our fish varieties. … If this trend continues, the Indian population will have to do without fish since the foreign buyers are ready to pay ten times the amount a poor Indian could afford. Can we allow our fish which is our vital food resources to be exported at the cost of the protein-starved population of our country, even if the principle involved is the highly questionable foreign exchange earnings?¹¹ (Kent 2018: 19)

In 2012, domestic fish prices were 1.4 times greater than beef and 1.5 times greater than chicken. As a result, India ranks 116 out of 160 countries in its per capita consumption of fish (Indian Dept. of Fisheries 2019), and two coastal provinces account for 90 percent of Indian fishery consumption (Kent 2018: 85–88).

Similarly, North Koreans could not possibly be consuming the 45 kilograms per capita estimated by FAOSTAT. In short, most of these fisheries are able to export because they withdraw resources from the domestic consumption pool. Indeed, fish and shellfish shortfalls have been reported in newspaper and NGO accounts since the mid-1990s (Wilks 1995; Environmental Justice Foundation 2003; Wilkinson 2010). Whatever the optimistic statistical estimates indicate, there is a more empirical barometer of the degree to which Asians lack access to the fish produced domestically. Declining consumption of indigenous high-protein, high-iron fish lies at the heart of the high to severe incidence of anemia and protein shortfalls in most of these Asian fisheries (see Table 2), as well as the high incidence of iodine and Vitamin A deficiencies.¹² If there were not large segments of the Asian populations that eat very little of the high-iron finfish, shellfish, and mollusks, national levels of these nutritional shortfalls would not be so high among Asian women and children. On average in 2013, fish accounted for only 12.9 percent of protein consumed in the Asian fisheries, showing a clear trend toward substitution of animal and plant proteins.

4.1 How Is the Food Import Budget Spent?

FAO policy emphasizes economic growth, integration into the global food trade system, and smallholder adaptation of imported Green, Blue and Genetic technologies. If trade liberalization worsens domestic conditions, the FAO explains, it is because national governments fail to offer social safety nets (FAO 2006a: 30–31), not because the global economic development agenda is biased in favor of the richest countries and their massive agribusinesses.

Consequently, the 1996 World Food Summit grounded global food security in the market-oriented world trade system. The 186 country representatives agreed that “trade is a key element in achieving world food security.” According to their reasoning, trade “allows domestic food consumption to be met more cheaply by less costly imported supplies,” and it “increases consumer choice by providing access to a greater range and diversity of foods” (World Food Summit 1996: Point 3.6). It is striking that the World Food Summit ignored price instabilities in the world food trade. Rising and erratic food prices represent a major risk facing Asian countries that depend on food imports (FAO 2019a). The food price index barely changed in developed countries over the decade between 2002 and 2012. Consumers in richer countries, including Japan, benefitted from stable pricing and from the cheap export prices of developing countries. In contrast, food prices were erratic and inflationary (and volatile from month to month) for the Asian fisheries.¹⁵ Moreover, delegates overlooked an even more significant problem. The stated policies reflect no concern about whether countries would acquire, through importing, the foods they need to address domestic nutritional shortfalls associated with hunger and disease. Nor did the Summit question whether the capitalists buying foreign foods for resale would select the kinds of nutrients most needed to address domestic needs (Watkins 1996).

Do the Asian fisheries overcome domestic dietary shortfalls through imports, as the FAO (2012d) claims will happen? Table 6 provides an empirical assessment of whether East, South and Southeast Asia import high levels of foods that supply the nutrients missing from domestic production and/or drained away by exporting. Even though the food-deficient fisheries exhibited high per capita deficits of high iron/protein foods, they did not prioritize those nutritional shortfalls. On average in 2016, they expended nearly 78 percent of their food import budgets on high fat/sugar and non-caloric foods and less than 10 percent to acquire high iron/protein foods. Despite its serious hunger index, Myanmar was the most extreme outlier because nearly 99 percent of its imports were high fat/sugar commodities and only one percent were high iron/protein foods. This trend reflects the global homogenization of dietary consumption and capitalist marketing to wealthier consumers. In 2011, ten commodities accounted for more than 80 percent of the world’s trade foods, and the trading of oils and fats grew faster than any other traded foods (Falconi et al. 2017: 147). Throughout the sixteen Asian fisheries, “much of the foreign exchange earned from the export of foods is not devoted to purchasing low cost nutritive foods for the needy, but is diverted to the purchase of luxury foods and other products in demand by local elites” (Mulekom et al. 2006: 550).

Indeed, all ten fisheries ranked with alarming or serious hunger indexes experienced per capita deficits of high-iron foods and of nutrient dense fishery products. However, they expended two-thirds or more of their food import budgets on commodities that (a) lacked the nutrients to address domestic health shortfalls and (b) were unhealthy enough to generate new kinds of health problems. What we have found supports the growing body of scholarship that points to a double burden of malnutrition in developing countries in which traditional diets are being displaced by a global diet dominated by carbohydrates, fats and sugars. Undernutrition among the poor is accompanied by rising obesity rates and lifestyle diseases in the middle classes (Popkin 2001; Kennedy et al. 2004; Hawkes 2006; Khan and Khoi 2008).

China was the most extreme positive outlier, for it was the only Asian fishery that directly utilized trade to address shortfalls in high iron/protein nutrients. Nearly three-fifths of its imports were high iron/protein foods while nearly 38 percent were high fat/sugar and non-caloric foods. In this regard, China is a stark contrast to its Taiwan province which acquired high iron/protein imports at about half the level of the mainland. Why is China different from the other Asian fisheries? First, China reduced tariffs on agricultural imports in 2004, making it the freest trading partner in the world. Soy is the high protein food that China imports at higher levels than any other, but it is important to emphasize that this plant protein is being substituted for large quantities of much healthier fishery commodities that are exported. Second, China utilizes its economic position in the region to acquire the most nutritious fishery commodities from high-hunger Asian fisheries to which it exports lower-quality frozen and canned finfish (Ji-Kun et al. 2017). Third, China is the only Asian fishery with a mandated national food and nutrition program that places constraints on imports to keep them in line with food security targets. This point of difference brings us to an important point about the minimal back seat role that the Asian fisheries play with respect to national food security.

We have been describing national food import budgets in a way that might mislead readers to think that Asian states make the decisions about what is imported. However, the reality of the world food system makes the pro-market idealism of the World Food Summit (1996) seem ridiculously naive. The rhetoric of the Summit policies assigns to consumers a great deal more agency than they actually have in the food importing process, and it pretends that states will research, plan and advocate the imports most needed to address nutritional needs. In reality, transnational corporations and domestic capitalists select the imports they are convinced will be most profitable, and they often create new local demand for faddish foods and beverages from rich countries (McMichael 2005). Moreover, international trade policies constrain national governments from setting standards that might interfere with free trade (SAPRIN 2002), so states do not regulate food importing with an eye to domestic nutritional needs. Examination of Table 7 and trade data make it clear that private sector importers selected commodities around two opposing goals: (a) cheap less nutritious foods for the poor and (b) more expensive candies, desserts, liquors, beverages, high-fat snacks, and processed convenience foods for middle class and affluent households. In both cases, the outcome is introduction of higher levels of carbohydrates, sugars and fats that not only fail to address nutritional shortfalls but also cause rising levels of obesity (Ng et al. 2014).

4.2 Nutritional Unequal Exchanges through Food Exports and Imports

If we apply the recent notion of nutritional footprint (Speck et al. 2013), we see that the countries that are characterized by a diet that has both calorie content and nutrient density are the richer countries to which these Asian fisheries export their high iron and high protein foods. While those countries exhibit a high nutritional footprint, the Asian fisheries (except Japan) have a low nutritional footprint because a large segment of their populations consume foods with caloric content that are lacking in nutrient density. In short, the low nutritional footprint of these low to middle income Asian fisheries is associated with negative health outcomes for a sizeable segment of their citizens. Developing countries, like these fishery exporters, are characterized by undernutrition, insufficient proteins and health problems tied to shortfalls in micronutrients, especially iron. These conceptualizations lead us to explore whether these Asian fisheries trade up nutritionally in order to acquire crucial imports that will address domestic malnutrition problems.

The UN COMTRADE statistical database provides data for 425 finfish, shellfish and mollusk species, identifying those intended for human consumption. Of this list, 253 finfish can be classified as nearly pure protein, and most of the crustaceans and mollusks are high in iron. The database lists separately those shellfish that are exported for human consumption, separating them into crustacean and mollusk species.¹⁶ Using the Trade Map database of the International Trade Centre, we acquired the quantities of the species of seafoods that were exported and imported by each of the Asian fisheries. Then we used four medical websites to classify those species in terms of their iron and protein content. Exported from Asian fisheries, tuna is the captured fish that is highest in protein while tilapia is the highest protein aquaculture species. In addition, Asian fisheries supply to the world nearly three-quarters of the seafoods that are highest in iron.¹⁷ As Figure 6 shows, the most frequently traded high-iron Asian seafood species are mollusks (clams, octopus, blue mullet, oyster) and crustaceans (prawn/shrimp, crab). However, caviar (fish eggs) and two types of high-iron finfish (sardines, anchovy) are routinely exported. In the face of high levels of domestic anemia and protein shortfalls, these Asian seafoods provide from 2.45 to 23.77 milligrams of iron per three ounce serving to distant healthier consumers.

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Nutritional content of frequently traded asian fishery and agricultural commodities

SOURCE: UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE FOOD COMPOSITION DATABASE, HTTPS://NDB.NAL.NSDA.GOV/NUTRIENTS/INDEX (ACCESSED 7 AUG. 2021)

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Since iron deficiency anemia and protein shortfalls are so problematic in the Asian fisheries (see Table 2), we are particularly interested in assessing how well they do in securing high iron and high protein foods through international trade. To analyze these trends, we classified traded foods by nutritional value in order to measure the degree to which crucial nutrients were lost through exports but regained through imports (see Figure 6). Table 5 points to the nutritional unequal exchange that results for these Asian fisheries with respect to export and import of high iron/protein fishery and agricultural commodities that are intended for human consumption. Most of them prioritized the export of fishery commodities over the need for domestic consumption of these seafoods. The thirteen Asian fisheries with moderate to alarming hunger indexes engaged in nutritional unequal exchanges by trading high iron/high protein fishery commodities for less nutritious fish. In contrast, the three Asian fisheries with low hunger indexes traded up nutritionally by exchanging low iron/low protein finfish for high iron/high protein mollusks, shellfish and finfish imported from their Asian neighbors.

Several scholars (e.g., Grote et al. 2005; Spiess 2014) have called attention to the hidden soil nutrients and water that are embodied in exported food crops, and these are ecological unequal exchanges that drain resources inequitably from developing countries. For example, Pengue (2005) estimates that 2002–2003 soybean exports resulted in the extraction of more than 1.2 million tons of nitrogen and phosphorus from Argentinian soils. However, exports also drain food resources from the human populations who produce them (Wimberley and Bello 1992; Wilkinson 2010; Milhalache-O’Keef and Li 2011; Austin et al. 2012). Falconi et al. (2017) have called attention to the caloric unequal exchanges involved in international trade, but they focus on the quantity and economic value of exports versus imports and on hidden ecological costs, not on the actual caloric value of the traded commodities. Since the philosophy of the FAO and international development agencies is that food importing is an important strategy for solving world hunger and malnutrition, we must move beyond using weak proxies for human consumption, like trade value. On the one hand, scholarship about loss of natural resources through exporting identifies externalized ecological costs, not hunger or malnutrition. On the other hand, a focus on the caloric content of traded commodities will conceal the double burden of undernutrition and rising obesity (Kennedy et al. 2004) that now characterizes most developing countries. Indeed, thirteen of the Asian fisheries expend their import budgets in such a way that the caloric content is primarily in unhealthy fats, sugars and carbohydrates (see Table 6), thereby failing to address major nutritional shortfalls that lead to domestic anemia, childhood stunting and other organic diseases. In order to assess whether importing actually addresses nutritional shortfalls, we need to examine trade exchanges in terms of the nutrients that are embedded in the food commodities that are exported and imported. For that reason, Table 7 compares the iron and protein exchanges that occur in the exporting and importing of fishery commodities.

Do the Asian fisheries acquire or lose high iron and high protein fishery commodities through importing? On average, these high fishery exporters shipped out nearly four times more high-iron foods than they imported. It is not surprising that those with alarming hunger indexes exhibit the greatest degree of nutritional unequal exchange and the lowest nutritional footprints. Despite alarming hunger indexes, Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, and Pakistan exported 4.1 times more high iron fishery commodities than they imported. The six fisheries ranked with serious hunger indexes exported 2.7 times more high iron fish than they imported while those ranked moderate shipped out 2.6 times more high iron foods than they acquired. With respect to high iron fishery commodities, it is clear that thirteen of the Asian fisheries are trading down nutritionally. On the world market, the foods that lead to a high nutritional footprint are higher value, reflecting the demand of rich countries. Consequently, the lower nutritional footprints result from the export of high value, nutrient rich foods coupled with the import of lower value, less nutritious higher calorie carbohydrates, sugars, and high fats (see Table 6). In sharp contrast, the three Asian fisheries with low hunger indexes (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan) imported 1.5 times more high iron fish than they exported, and 1.2 times more high protein foods than they lost. Overall, the low-hunger Asian fisheries are trading up nutritionally by importing from Asian neighbors with far worse hunger problems.

What do these numbers mean to individual Asians? When the unequal nutritional exchange is calculated as surpluses or deficits per capita, all these fisheries except Japan are made less food secure through trade. With their alarming hunger indexes, Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan lost about one kilogram per capita of high iron foods. Those judged to have serious hunger problems exhibited per capita deficits of 1.3 to 5.3 kilograms of high iron foods. Among those with a moderate hunger index, China lost nearly three kilograms of iron per capita while Thailand and Malaysia were shortchanged 37 to 47 kilograms per capita. In addition, thirteen of these fisheries experienced per capita protein shortfalls while another three barely met national consumption needs. China achieved a per capita protein surplus of nearly 41 kilograms, much of which was derived from dependency on imported soy that is being substituted for the more nutritious fishery commodities that the Chinese export.

The human benefit of unequal nutritional exchange is evidenced in the polarization between Japan, Taiwan and South Korea and their neighboring fishery exporters. While they receive high iron and high protein foods and fishery commodities from Asian neighbors whose exports sustain their high nutritional footprint, they export to them lower-quality canned fish and processed foods which exacerbate their low nutritional footprints that lack nutrient density.¹⁸ In short, these three Asian fisheries eat more than an equitable share of the high iron and high protein commodities produced in this region while a high proportion of the residents of the fisheries that supply them have access to so little of these foods that they exhibit higher incidence of hunger and nutritional deficiencies.

4.3 Do Farm Outputs Offset Fishery Nutritional Shortfalls Caused by Exporting?

In order to determine what foods the Asian fisheries need to import to overcome those nutritional shortfalls, we must examine their agricultural production patterns. When we sort crops into nutritional categories, we see that foods that are high in carbohydrates, sugars and fats account for one-half to three-quarters of crop production in all the Asian fisheries. Consequently, agricultural production does not alleviate the losses of iron and protein caused by fishery exporting (see Table 7). On the one hand, food crops account for a minority of total agricultural production (see Table 4). On the other hand, high iron/protein foods represent a minuscule amount of farm output. Pulses, chicken, meats, eggs, milk, nuts, mangoes and spinach were the only high iron/protein outputs they produced. Because they exhibit protein inadequacies and high incidence of iron deficiency anemia, fisheries with alarming or serious food indexes need to generate more of these nutrients through agricultural production. However, that is not occurring. High iron/protein foods accounted for less than one percent of agricultural production in Indonesia, North Korea, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam, compared to two to four percent in Bangladesh and Myanmar. Pakistan stood out as an anomaly, as it allocated 14 percent of agricultural output to these nutrients. Among the fisheries with moderate and low hunger indexes, high iron/protein foods accounted for less than one-tenth of one percent of agricultural production in Malaysia and Thailand, compared to four to seven percent in Japan and South Korea.¹⁹

Throughout the Asian fisheries, there is a nutritional shift to a high beef diet by middle class and elite households which is driving conversion of croplands to pastures for livestock production (Wilkinson 2010). This trend led us to question whether the nutritional impacts of fishery exports were offset by domestic meat production. On the one hand, none of these Asian fisheries is producing enough beef to feed its entire population, so red meat consumption is still a luxury food for the minority who can afford it. On the other hand, the populations of fourteen of the Asian fisheries experience a moderate to severe incidence of anemia that could be offset by access to affordable high iron fishery or beef outputs (see Table 8). On average in 2016, however, the ten Asian fisheries with a high to severe incidence of anemia exported 8.4 milligrams of fishery-iron per capita to every milligram of beef-iron generated domestically. With a moderate incidence of anemia, Malaysia and Thailand e4xported 38 milligrams per capita of iron-rich fishery commodities to every milligram of domestic beef.

There are four exceptions to these trends, indicating more extensive reallocation of agricultural lands to cattle pasturage. With a high incidence of anemia, Pakistan produces 5.8 milligrams per capita of beef-iron to every exported milligram of fishery-iron. However, the country’s anemia incidence would be lower if these meat outputs were actually accessible to the poor and much of the middle class. In this context, it is questionable that Pakistan should be exporting its high-iron fishery products. With a moderate incidence of anemia, China exports 1.3 fishery iron milligrams per capita to every milligram of domestic beef. Also exhibiting a moderate anemia incidence, South Korea exports 6.1 fishery-iron milligrams per capita to every domestic beef milligram. With a low incidence of anemia, Taiwan exports 322.6 milligrams of fishery-iron per capita and Japan exports 3.3 fishery-iron milligrams per capita to every milligram of domestic beef-iron. These trends are problematic for two reasons. First, they represent reallocation of farm lands to the production of livestock, limiting the acreage available for production of plant-based high iron/protein foods that are more affordable locally. Second, they indicate a shift toward the western pattern of consumption of less healthy red meats. Third, beef is so expensive in all the Asian fisheries that it is rarely eaten by a majority of the people. Consequently, anemia reaches into both poor and middle class households in the Asian fisheries, including Japan (see Table 2).

4.3 Growing Dependency on Wheat, Soy and Processed Foods

Analysts continue to assume that rice is the central staple of Asian diets, but this has not been a correct assessment for some time. In reality, rice now accounts for 20 percent less of Asian food consumption than it did in 1961 (see Figure 7). By 2010, rice accounted for 28 percent of total agricultural tons produced in Bangladesh and one-fifth of crop output in Myanmar. However, rice did not predominate in any of these fisheries. Indeed, rice accounted for only 5 to 11 percent of total agricultural output in India, Japan, Pakistan and South Korea, one to three 3 percent in China, Indonesia, North Korea, the Philippines, and Vietnam, and less than one percent in Malaysia, Thailand and Sri Lanka.²⁰ While national governments still define rice to be the staple for the poor, the growing Asian middle classes are diversifying their diets toward wheat (FAO 2013), as food importing trends reflect. In 2010, all the major Asian fishery exporters, except the Philippines, spent more of their food import budgets on wheat than on rice. By 2013, however, even the Philippines was importing greater levels of wheat than rice. Indeed, China is now the only country that ranks among the world’s top ten rice importers while the Philippines has slid down to 36th position.²¹ Even though several of these fisheries (e.g., Bangladesh, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam) produce high levels of rice, they also import large quantities of wheat. Indonesia (1st), Japan (3rd), China (6th), South Korea (7th) rank among the world’s top ten largest wheat importers. Even though China and India are now the first and second largest wheat producers in the world, neither country cultivates enough to meet national demand, so both rely on imports.²²

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Percentage of rice in total food consumptions, 1990–2009

SOURCE: ADB (2012)

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Why is this trend toward dependency on wheat imports significant to the food security of the Asian fisheries? First, wheat is more expensive than rice, so it is not affordable for the poor. Moreover, it has been characterized by price volatility. Between 2002 and 2012, the price index for wheat rose more than the price index for all foods (FAOSTAT). Second, most of these Asian fisheries expend more of their food import budgets on wheat than on high iron/protein foods. India and China are able to expend a great deal more on proteins because they produce much of their national wheat consumption. Thailand, Japan and South Korea expended more on proteins, but they exchanged high iron/protein fishery exports for wheat. Nine of the fisheries with alarming and serious hunger indexes expended more of their food import budgets on wheat than on proteins. Even though rice accounted for more than half of the total crop production in these two countries, low-income food-deficient Bangladesh spent 9.5 times more on wheat than proteins while Myanmar (with a serious hunger index) expended a minuscule amount on proteins compared to wheat (FAOSTAT). What all these fisheries have in common is that they are trading down nutritionally. They export high iron foods in order to acquire foods which have high caloric value but provide very low levels of important nutrients. In the case of wheat, they engage in a nutritional unequal exchange, i.e., high iron/protein foods and fishery commodities into the world market in exchange for a food that is primarily carbohydrate.

Asian traditional diets have not only shifted with respect to cereals but also in terms of growing dependency on soya imports as substitutes for protein/iron exports. China and India are the fourth and fifth largest producers of soya in the world, but they utilize their production nationally. Consequently, these Asian fisheries import most of their soya from the USA, South America and Canada.²³ In 2010, soybeans accounted for a majority of the protein imported by Indonesia, North Korea and China while Japan, Malaysia, South Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam utilized two-fifths to half of their protein expenditures on soya imports. About one-quarter of the protein imports of Bangladesh and Myanmar were soybeans while 12 percent of the protein imported by the Philippines was soya.

There are four problems with this pattern. First, prices of soya have risen as world demand has risen; soya cost three times more in 2012 than in 2002. Second, import of soy represents a nutritional unequal exchange of high iron exports for protein imports in fisheries that have high incidence of iron deficiency anemia (see Table 1). Third, these fisheries are substituting dependency on a single protein for production of traditional foods that supplied protein diversity. Fourth, western medical and nutrition experts have documented nutritional dangers of soy for three decades, even though soy is now a fad food around which all kinds of positive advertising claims are made. The soybean contains large quantities of natural toxins that block enzymes needed for protein digestion and iron absorption. Thus, individuals with iron deficiency or those at high risk of developing iron deficiency (which is a serious health problem in these Asian fisheries, especially for women and children) should avoid eating soy. Clearly, soya importing represents a nutritional unequal exchange because high iron exports are exchanged for a protein that has the capacity to lower iron absorption from the few sources that are still available to Asian consumers (Latunde-Dada and Neale 1986). To complicate matters, the processing of soybeans at high temperatures denature them so that much of the nutritional effect of their proteins is dissipated. In addition, soybeans have a much higher degree of contamination by pesticides than most foods (Morck et al. 1982).

There is another trend that indicates the disjuncture between national nutritional needs and food imports. Health and nutrition experts argue that food importing is popularizing globally the worst nutritional habits of westerners, leading toward a rising incidence of lifestyle diseases that once characterized only a few rich countries. Many of the emerging Asian nutritional and health problems are related to the displacement of local fresh fish, vegetables and fruits by imported processed foods that are loaded with high levels of carbohydrates, fats, and sugars (Goryakinab et al. 2015). On average, Asian fisheries with alarming and severe hunger indexes imported 2.5 times more tons of less nutritious processed commodities than high iron/protein foods. With the exception of Malaysia, the fisheries with moderate and low hunger indexes exhibited the opposite pattern. On average, they imported 2.5 tons of high iron/protein foods to every ton of processed foods. However, all the Asian fisheries exchanged fishery products for processed foods. Specifically, these fisheries exported fresh/frozen fish and shellfish of higher nutritional and market value, but they imported fish preparations with carbohydrate and fat fillers and canned fish species of lower nutritional and market value. Indeed, 39 percent of the imports of fish by these Asian fisheries originate from the processing and re-export of their exports by developed countries (FAO 2012b: 41, 70). Philippine scholar Renato Constantino (1988) called attention to this nutritional unequal exchange three decades ago. Protein imperialism results, he argued, from international trade in which richer countries export their high-fat, high-sugar, low-protein foods to poor countries from which they import more nutritious proteins. Moreover, processed foods are linked to the rising obesity among the poor and middle classes in the Asian fisheries (Ng et al. 2014).

4.4 Imported Production Inputs for Export Commodities

These nutritional unequal exchanges are exacerbated by another import pattern. To support their production of crops and fish for export, all the Asian fisheries import fossil fuels, agricultural machinery, boats and tools, animal and aquaculture feeds, fertilizers, pesticides, and live species for propagation. North Korea spends nearly as much on these inputs as it receives for its food exports, while China expends three-fifths of the value of its food exports on imported inputs. India, Vietnam and Thailand lose about one-quarter of the value of food exports in this manner while Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar and Sri Lanka allocate 15 to 20 percent of the value of food exports to cover these costs.²⁴ Rather than purchasing high iron/protein foods, Asian fisheries with severe nutritional shortfalls utilize import dollars to acquire inputs to produce exports. In other words, pesticides for exports are prioritized over domestic consumption. The situation of Bangladesh underscores this dilemma. This low-income food-deficient country expends nearly twice as much on imported production inputs as it receives for its food exports. The Asian fisheries make another import choice that has food security implications. On average, the low-income food-deficient fisheries expend $7.80 on petroleum to every dollar utilized for food imports. For instance, India’s food imports cost only 13 percent of what the country pays out for petroleum.²⁵

Table 9 makes clear the nutritional impacts of the food versus feed import choices by the Asian fisheries. In 2016, imports per capita of high iron foods exceeded per capita feed imports in only five of the fisheries. In those countries, however, imports of aquaculture feeds– primarily to produce shellfish exports– cost $1.95 to every dollar’s worth of high iron fish imports for humans. This is why fishers in the Philippines, India and Bangladesh report that fishponds are more nutritious than their household diets (Environmental Justice Foundation 2003). The ten fisheries with high or severe incidence of anemia expended $1.41 per capita of feeds for livestock and fishponds to every import dollar for high iron foods. The four fisheries with moderate incidence of anemia imported $1.16 per capita in feed to every dollar per capita of imported high iron foods. Import patterns help to explain why Japan and Taiwan are the only two Asian fisheries with a mild incidence of anemia. While Japan allocates 1.3 times more per capita to import feeds, Taiwan nearly breaks even in its feed/food imports. It is in the import of high iron fish that Japan and Taiwan stand out from the other fisheries. Japan spent $3.96 on imported high iron fish to every aquaculture feed dollar while Taiwan utilizes only 44 cents for feed imports to every dollar of high iron fish imports. Japan and Taiwan achieve their high iron food imports through nutritional unequal exchanges with hungrier neighboring fisheries (see Table 5). With a moderate incidence of anemia, China spends $8.90 on imported aquaculture feeds to every dollar utilized to import high iron fish for human consumption. China acquires those aquaculture feeds by importing small fish from neighboring hungrier fisheries that should utilize those exports as human high protein foods.

4.5 Impacts of Food Imports on Agricultural Production

As Figure 8 shows, food imports expanded dramatically in the Asian fisheries between 2001 and 2011. Imports more than quadrupled for countries with alarming hunger indexes while those with serious hunger indexes more than doubled their imports over this decade. What have been the impacts of these rising imports? First, we know from the data about undernutrition that food imports have not offset nutritional shortfalls (see Table 9). Second, food importing has had the effect of dampening Asian agricultural production. The Food and Agriculture Organization (2003c) points out that “high import growth can undermine otherwise viable domestic production.” Since 2000, public spending on agricultural and fishery research and extension systems has stagnated in the Asian fisheries, except China and India (ADB 2013). According to Chang and Shih-Hsun (2011: 10),

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Percentage increase in $US value of food imports in the major Asian fisheries, grouped by global hunger index, 2001–2011

SOURCES AND NOTES: THE VALUE OF ALL CATEGORIES OF FOOD IMPORTS WERE AGGREGATED FOR 2001 AND 2011 FROM UN COMTRADE DATABASE, THEN PERCENTAGE OF GROWTH WAS CALCULATED BETWEEN THESE TWO YEARS. GLOBAL HUNGER INDEXES FROM CONCERN WORLDWIDE (2011)

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agriculture is increasingly neglected in most Asian countries. In Japan, agriculture is in a freefall decline. In the years between 1960 and 2005, the share of agricultural output in GDP dropped from 9% to 1%, the food selfsufficiency ratio from 79% to 41%, and agricultural land, indispensable for food security, from 6.09 million hectares to 4.63 million hectares. Meanwhile, the ratio of parttime farm households, which derive more than half their income from nonfarm employment, increased from 32.1% to 61.7%. The percentage of farmers over 65 years old also jumped from 10% to 60%. Gross agricultural output in 2006 was 8.5 trillion yen, less than the sales volume of Panasonic.

For instance, South Korea has opted to prioritize its urbanized industries, showing little interest in agriculture. It now imports a majority of its food, making it very difficult for farmers to earn livelihoods. Its urban centers are symbols of ‘sparkling Korea’ while poverty characterizes the countryside. Since the average farmer is older than fifty and tills a few hectares, the farm sector is stigmatized by most Koreans as backward (Müller 2011).

Though the populations and labor forces of most of the Asian fisheries are still disproportionately rural, they have shown sharp declines in food self-reliance, and the share of the GDP represented by agriculture has shrunk. All the Asian fisheries have undergone a deterioration in agricultural self-reliance since implementation of the 1995 WTO Agreement on Agriculture.²⁶

The deterioration is a reflection of the much higher growth in food imports … because domestic production cannot compete with cheap imports. … Small producers incur large income losses (relative to the retail prices they received in the past) while traders and firms have reaped significant benefits. The impact of the constantly diminishing share of total income accruing to these small producers has been devastating in terms of social dislocation, reduced entitlements, and poverty as well as food insecurity. (GuhaKhasnobis et al. 2007: 282–89)

Imported production inputs for export crops and aquaculture have also impacted small producers negatively.

7.1 Land and Waterway Dispossession

Two of the worst impacts of globalized aquaculture are the dispossession of peasants from their lands and the destruction of traditional livelihoods (Harvey 2003). Throughout the Asian fisheries, the export orientation of fisheries and aquaculture has led to the marginalization of communities that had traditionally been involved in fishing and fish processing (Kurien 2002). A key factor in globalization of fishpond production has been privatization of commons. The first step in this process has been a re-definition of public ecosystems as being “available for development” because they are “idle waste lands that are unproductive.” Following this rationale, governments have transformed hundreds of thousands of public coastal areas into single-purpose private property (Skladany and Harris 1995: 182). Loss of access to these natural resources has threatened the survival of peasant fishers in every Southern country that specializes in export aquaculture (Shiva 2000). Moreover, aquaculture has destroyed small-scale farms and enterprises to pave the way for corporate-owned agribusiness enclaves (Bailey and Skladany 1991). In the global shrimp chain, for instance, small-scale traditional ponds have been aggregated to form larger, export-oriented farms. By controlling land and waterways and by relying on contract farming, larger aquaculture firms vertically integrate activities from production to post-harvest to marketing (Skladany and Harris 1995: 181). Even though peasants comprise a majority of the fishers located in areas where commercial aquaculture is entrenched, these households are marginalized from these economic activities (Bailey 1988b: 36). On the one hand, large aquaculture operations require high capital investments that small entrepreneurs cannot provide (Primavera 1991). On the other hand, large projects monopolize the credit offered by banks and financial institutions (Shiva 2002).

Furthermore, export aquaculture has led to the elimination of employment opportunities for Southern coastal populations. Despite the expensive inputs, export-oriented aquaculture employs far fewer laborers than do small-scale fishing operations. The net result has been that unemployment has risen among fishing households in the Global South that have converted to Blue Revolution production strategies (Shiva 2002). Moreover, few workers are required for the aquaculture systems, and child laborers are often exploited (Bailey and Skladany 1991). Worse, corporate shrimp farming has been tied to murders of peasant fisher-activists in eleven Asian and Latin American countries, including the Philippines (Environmental Justice Foundation 2003: 26).