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.
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