Concerns that the global food system is failing to deliver safe, nutritious, sustainable and equitable diets have intensified over the past decade, leading to calls for food system transformation. At the same time, population growth and rising affluence are fuelling demand for more food and for resource-intensive diets. In this landscape of demand and need, visions of what constitutes progress towards a sustainable food system diverge. Agendas for change highlight challenges related to production efficiency, technological innovation, and equity and inclusion. Recognizing the critical role that small-scale actors play in meeting these challenges requires a deeper understanding of their diverse characteristics and the contributions they make to sustainable and equitable food systems. In this article we draw on the livelihoods and social–ecological systems literature to define the diversity of small-scale fisheries and aquaculture (SSFA)—first, in terms of the suite of strategies used by actors throughout the value chain to meet their objectives and spread economic, social and environmental risk, both across and within geographies and socioenvironmental systems; and second, in terms of how SSFA diversity can impact production, distribution and benefits arising from aquatic food systems.
SSFA produce more than half of the global fish catch and two-thirds of aquatic foods for human consumption, and associated value chains support over 100 million full- and part-time jobs. Nevertheless, the nature and importance of these contributions to food and nutrition security, livelihoods and sustainability remain inadequately recognized by development, food, environment and fisheries policies. We argue one reason for this persistent neglect is that policymakers are challenged by the diversity and dynamism of the SSFA sector. Despite significant advances towards acknowledging SSFA diversity and contributions via efforts such as the FAO’s Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-scale Fisheries (SSF Guidelines), policies affecting the sector typically make unrealistic assumptions of homogeneity and stasis. In contrast, as highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic, responses and adaptive capacity of small-scale actors are highly variable, reflecting their diversity. Failure to address the diverse and dynamic nature of SSFA risks jeopardizing their persistence and the food systems of which they are part. While the viability of SSFA appears key for equitable and sustainable food systems, ‘blue economy’ narratives grounded in expansion of capital-intensive fisheries, transnational investments and offshore mariculture have gained traction in national and international policy debates. These narratives tend to further homogenize SSFA as dysfunctional, vulnerable and/or marginal, and give preference to industrial over small-scale modes of production.
Interactions between industrial fishing and aquaculture interests with SSFA are heterogeneous and can range from cooperation and interdependence to competing and undermining sustainability with immediate impacts on SSFA viability. It is critical to remove subsidies to industrial concerns, rebalance access to capital and political influence and take steps to counteract simplistic characterizations of SSFA actors, their roles in food systems and how governance reforms may affect, enable or exclude them. As social–ecological systems and food sovereignty perspectives argue, SSFA are key to holistic blue food futures, but policymakers need tools that can better incorporate and capitalize on their inherent diversity. The diversity of SSFA is commonly overlooked, partly due to misrepresentation and contestation over what constitutes ‘small-scale’. Similar to discourses around smallholder agriculture, most analyses of the aquatic sector agree that binary classifications of ‘small’ and ‘large’ are inadequate given high geographic and socioeconomic heterogeneity. Rather than pursuing one definition of SSFA, consistent with the SSF Guidelines, this paper aims to prime future analysis to be inclusive of SSFA diversity. We present an innovative heuristic that illustrates the diversity of SSFA actors to examine threats from climate, environmental, socioeconomic and political change, and opportunities to support SSFA viability for more sustainable and equitable food systems…
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