Pesca e Produção Pecuária

Abstrato

Fish Consumption Pattern and Its Relative Importance for Improving Nutritional Security in Ethiopia: A Review

Minalu Demilew, Abebaw Abebe

Feeding a hurriedly increasing human population is a foremost concern for researchers and any development partners in the world. Fish production plays a great role and it can be even a fate in providing global food requirement. In Ethiopia, fisheries are accredited as an important strategy in the drive for achieving food security and means of livelihood. The country has endowed with over 7, 400 km2 of lakes and 7, 000 km of rivers with production potential of 51, 500 tons per year. However, only 30%-38% of this potential is currently used and contributes only 0.02% to its GDP. The current contribution of fish is still far below the estimated potential, this suggests that reviewing its production, consumption pattern, role and challenges that faced in subsector is much more important. Therefore, this review paper was conducted to; review production and consumption pattern of fish, relative importance of fish for improving nutritional security, identify the determinants of consumption pattern of fish and to analyze the challenges of fish production and marketing in Ethiopia. Fish has a relative importance for improving food and nutritional security due to its climate, nutritional, accessibility and health aspects. In Ethiopia the subsector contributes far below the expected potential due to both production and marketing constraints such as lack of proper knowledge, weak institutional support, poor market linkage, seasonal fish consumption pattern, aquatic pollution and poor harvesting system.