Medidas de Gestao das Pescarias Marinhas e Aquicultura 2019 The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2018 | Page 63

THE STATE OF WORLD FISHERIES AND AQUACULTURE 2018 national inland fisheries and may not be indicative of an overall national trend. complex preparations. Food processing and packaging technolog y is being developed in many countries, with increases in the efficiency, effectiveness and profitabilit y of the use of raw materials and innovation in product diversification. Moreover, expansion in the consumption and commercialization of fish products in recent decades (see section on consumption later in Part 1) has been accompanied by growing interest in food qualit y and safet y, nutritional aspects and waste reduction. In the interests of food safet y and consumer protection, increasingly stringent hygiene measures have been adopted at the national and international trade levels. For example, the Codex Code of Practice for Fish and Fisher y Products (Codex Alimentarius Commission, 2016) provides g uidance to countries on practical aspects of implementing good hygienic practices and the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (H ACCP) food safet y management system (see also “International trade, sustainable value chains and consumer protection” in Part 3). It might be possible to derive an overall picture of the state of the world’s inland fisheries resources by monitoring the state of major inland fisheries at river basin level. Inland fisheries vary notably from year to year because they are influenced not only by fishing pressure but also by often dramatic fluctuations in climatic conditions (rainfall, temperature and seasonal effects), water dynamics (flooding, water flow and connectivity), nutrient availability, water quality and pollution. Tracking such changes in river basins over a five- to ten-year period would help describe and explain trends in inland fisheries. At t he cou nt r y le vel , it cou ld be benef ic ia l to mon itor t he c atc h a nd ident i f y ke y d r iver s i n nationally important inland fisheries – those with high overall production (and thus contribution to national catch) or high participation (e.g. dispersed f loodplain fisheries). It could then be possible to de te r m i ne a n at ion a l t r end a nd t he f i she r ie s (f loodplain, riverine, wetland, human-made and natural water bodies) driving it. The tracking of a n u m b e r o f f i s h e r y- r e l e v a n t i n d i c a t o r s (e . g . env ironmental drivers and fisheries production) would also make it possible to identify underlying causes of declines (overexploitation, environmental change). FAO is currently evaluating options of how to establish an approach for inland fisher y assessment which would enable member countries to track key fisheries both for global tracking of inland fisher y resources and for national polic y and management responses. n FISH UTILIZATION AND PROCESSING In 2016, of the 171 million tonnes of total fish production, about 88 percent or over 151 million tonnes were utilized for direct human consumption (Figure 17). This share has increased significantly in recent decades, as it was 67 percent in the 1960s. In 2016, the greatest part of the 12 percent used for non-food purposes (about 20 million tonnes) was reduced to fishmeal and fish oil (74 percent or 15 million tonnes), while the rest (5 million tonnes) was largely utilized as material for direct feeding in aquaculture and raising of livestock and fur animals, in culture (e.g. fr y, fingerlings or small adults for ongrowing), as bait, in pharmaceutical uses and for ornamental purposes. Fish is a versatile food commodit y; the wide variet y of species can be prepared in many different ways. As fish can spoil more rapidly than many other foods, post-har vest handling, processing, preser vation, packaging, storage and transportation require particular care to maintain its qualit y and nutritional attributes and avoid waste and losses. Preser vation and processing can reduce the rate of spoilage and thus allow fish to be distributed and marketed worldwide in a wide range of product forms destined for food or non-food uses, from live organisms to more Live, fresh or chilled is often the most preferred and highly priced form of fish and represents the largest share of fish for direct human consumption, 45 percent in 2016, followed by frozen (31 percent), prepared and preser ved (12 percent) and cured (dried, salted, in brine, fermented smoked) (12 percent). Freezing represents the main method of processing fish for human consumption; it accounted for 56 percent of total processed fish for human consumption and 27 percent of total fish production in 2016. | 47 |