NORGLOBAL2-Norge - global partner

The SmallFishFood consortium is a multidisciplinary research team from Norway, the Netherlands, Germany, Ghana, Kenya and Uganda, covering the fields of fish stock assessment, processing, marketing, nutrition, risk assessment and governance. We will renew the food security discourse by focusing on the nutritional value of small fish (e.g. sardines). We aim for transformation to ecological sustainability and food security by asking: How can socio-cultural, economic and institutional transformations of the fish value chain, as well as technical and infrastructural innovations, contribute to improved, sustainable utilisation of small fish resources for Africa?s low-income population? The fact that the nutrients in fish can play a significant role in combating the triple burden of hunger, micronutrient deficiencies and non-communicable diseases is the starting point of the project. However, the unique qualities of fish are seldom recognized in the global food security discourse, and fish is strikingly missing from nutrient deficiency strategies among disadvantaged groups. Small fish are ubiquitous in all aquatic environments from large marine ecosystems to seasonal ponds, as well as in market places and low-income household diets, but their significance is underrated and little understood as they are consumed locally and often go unrecorded in catch statistics. In fact, fisheries are the most energy efficient producers in comparison to other food production systems and have the least environmental impact in terms of greenhouse gases and use of freshwater, fertilizers, insecticides/herbicides. Catching small fish, which are simply sun-dried and consumed whole, is the most high-yielding, eco-friendly, low CO2-emission and nourishing way of utilizing aquatic resources. However, a range of social, technical, economic and legal barriers inhibits the full potential of utilizing small fish. It is the aim of this project to contribute to solving these with global scalability. The project is now officially terminated but has in the period 202-21 been significantly affected by the Covid pandemic due to travel restrictions. The planned midterm meeting in association with the MARE conference in Amsterdam was held online via the conference portal, but the final project meeting was held physically in June 2022 in Ghana. The travel restrictions have affected our Master students in particular by limiting their fieldwork. However, we managed to arrange with our partners in Ghana and Kenya to let them do the data collection by transferring unused travel money to cover the expenses. We have thus managed to complete the following activities and fulfilled our objectives: • Two PhD students, one in Nutrition at the Institute of marine research, and one recruited in a sub-project “Small fish for small children: Dietary intake of small fish to reduce child malnutrition in Uganda” granted through UiBs strategic area Global challenges. • Six master students recruited at Department of Geography, Department of Biology, and Centre for International Health to be supervised by project partners at UiB • 12 peer reviewed articles published (see our homepage https://smallfishfood.org/ for details) • In addition, 7 articles submitted or under preparation, as well as 3 reports completed • 9 presentations at international or nation conferences or media outlets • 4 professional videos of our results produced and published on YouTube or our Twitter account #SmallFishFood, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0ZZ7K4RK0C4C-8zeYj6Cfg • Our project has received considerable international recognitions, and several activities are still under preparation, such as a continuation of the project under a renewed EU call, further dissemination at international conferences, and a FAO report on the importance of small fish for food security and nutrition under preparation.

We believe the project has had significant impact on the international discourse on food and nutrition security. One of the earliest project outcomes, the FAO publication Kolding et al. 2019 “Freshwater small pelagic fish and fisheries in the main African great lakes and reservoirs in relation to food security and nutrition.” has already been cited 66 times. Another indicator is that one of our project partners, Shakuntala Thilsted at the WoldFish center, was awarded the 2021 World Food price for here work on the nutritional composition of small native fish species. Small fish has literally been put on the table. As a result, together with colleagues in related projects, we are now producing a second FAO publication entitled “Small and low-cost fish for food security and nutrition – a food system approach”, which will also be the base of a dedicated workshop under the forthcoming ICES/PICES International Symposium on Small Pelagic Fish: New Frontiers in Science for Sustainable Management in October 2022. We have also been invited to communicate our findings at several high-level workshops and conferences, such as the African Network on Fish Technology and Safety (ANFTS), the 12th European Congress on Tropical Medicine and International Health, and a SADC think tank event on the “Role of Small Pelagic Fisheries (SPF) on Food Systems in African Great Lakes Region”. Several international NGOs, such as the Rockefeller foundation, The Nature Conservancy, The Western Indian Ocean Marine Science Association (WIOMSA) has followed our work and invited us to share our findings. Food and nutrition security from small fish has now become an integral activity in the Norad sponsored “Dr. Fridtjof Nansen” project and the topic is increasingly highlighted in several other project, such as the newly terminated Illuminated Hidden harvest project of FAO and WorldFish. We also believe that there is still a lot of potential for further international collaboration on the subject, and we are planning to continue and expand our consortium under two new calls: The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Collaborative Funding Call under the Global Research Council, and the HORIZON-CL6-2023-FARM2FORK: EU-Africa Union – food safety call.