Barriers to aquaculture development as a pathway to poverty alleviation and food security

The importance of aquaculture production in developing countries is reviewed briefly. Two sets of barriers to realizing the potential of aquaculture to alleviate poverty and improve food security and nutrition are identified: those directly attributable to aquaculture development policies and those arising from a lack of policy coherence for development (PCD). The latter applies to a wide range of sectors, the most important from an aquaculture perspective being energy, environment, agriculture and food production, and trade and sanitary standards. Lack of PCD is apparent at many levels: within development cooperation policies, between aid and non-aid policies within a single donor and between donors, and donor-partner coherence to achieve shared development objectives. We conclude that development agencies can play a greater role in fostering the emergence of aquaculture as a means of alleviating poverty and improving food security and nutrition. This requires broadening the focus beyond poor producers to include small and medium aquaculture enterprises, adopting a value chain perspective on aquaculture development that fosters a “whole industry” approach that delivers key human development goals, and pursuing greater internal coherence within and between development policies. We also propose that development agencies promote mechanisms and interventions that redress policy imbalances by raising awareness among policy makers and through more integrated approaches to development assistance.