Overview
Fisheries and aquaculture are crucial for food security, nutrition, and the livelihoods of billions of people. However, the rapid degradation of fish populations and significant post-harvest losses in fisheries supply chains present major challenges to sustainable management. It is estimated that about 35% of the catch is lost or wasted annually. High rates of post-harvest loss can lead to increased fishing pressure as fishers seek to compensate for lost income, resulting in overfishing, diminished fish populations, and disrupted aquatic ecosystems.
Factors contributing to these losses include inadequate cold storage facilities, inefficient transportation, technological gaps and lack of training for fishery workers. These issues are compounded by fluctuating market demands and insufficient regulatory frameworks, affecting both developed and developing nations. Efforts to mitigate such losses are critical to ensure the sustainable use of aquatic resources and to secure the nutritional needs of the global population.
Reduction in post-harvest loss of fish presents a vast opportunity to reduce avoidable greenhouse gas emissions and improve global food security and help reduce pressure on depleting fish populations. Several measures can be implemented by governments to significantly reduce the incidence of fish losses:
- Improved practices on fishing vessels:
- Impose strict landing regulations: Introduce binding obligations on fishers to ensure all catches of species that are subject to minimum sizes or quotas are kept on board the vessel, landed and counted against quotas, except when used for live bait (depending on national context). It is crucial to include adequate monitoring, control, and surveillance measures.
- Regulate discard levels: Use International Guidelines on Bycatch Management and Reduction of Discards, designed to assist state and regional fisheries management organizations in formulating and implementing appropriate measures to manage and reduce discards.
- Improve the storage capacity of smaller vessels through innovative systems (e.g., compartmentalization, or plastification of the outer hull of wooden boats to prevent seawater seepage).
- Encourage using ice on board vessels: The use of ice for preserving fish and fishery products is a highly effective handling method on board fishing vessels. Many larger vessels, including artisanal fishing vessels, such as larger dugout canoes, outboard-motor-powered launches and larger inboard-engine-powered vessels up to 20 m long, will benefit from the use of some form of on-board preservation, such as ice or chilled seawater.
- Improved processing practices:
- Improve cold-chain infrastructure: Enhancing capacity for food handling and distribution practices that maintain the fish product at a suitable temperature throughout the entire supply chain.
- Improve drying techniques: Raised drying racks enable fish to be dried off the ground faster and in a cleaner environment, reducing loss and improving quality and price. Perforated plastic containers can be useful to handle small pelagic fish on-board and during transportation.
- Improve hygiene and quality standards and practices to reduce spoilage and waste and to safeguard health of fisher folks. Establish Sanitary Standard Operating Procedures (SSOPs) and/or local management committees with a mandate and funding from the government.
- Make use of by-products/waste such as fish frames (i.e. bones and attached flesh that remain after slicing off fish fillets parallel to the spine), fish guts or fish offal (i.e. scraps other than fish fillets).
- Improved public infrastructure:
- Take into account context-specificity and equity for infrastructure improvements to prevent inefficiencies and ineffective interventions (e.g., cooling facilities are fuel dependent, but fuel costs are prohibitively high; large modern facilities displace and marginalize women traders who traditionally make informal sales to vulnerable populations; or digital solutions do not match digital literacy of the population.)
- Invest in innovative post-harvest, preservation and digital solutions.
- Invest in renewable energy-based off-grid solutions, for example, for cold-chain and processing at the community level (e.g. ice-making, cold storage and dryers).
- Strengthen provision, funding, management, and maintenance of infrastructure, logistics, technologies and services, in alignment with national priorities, by public sector or public-private partnerships. Such activities should focus on benefitting areas with widespread multidimensional poverty:
- Crucial infrastructure includes modern and well-designed fish landing centres, harbours, processing establishments, marketing facilities that are easily accessible by roads, and reliable energy supply.
- Crucial services include potable water, electricity, ice, fish inspection and extension services, and other public services (e.g. environmental health inspections and market management).
- Improved roads and transportation services.
- Best management practices.
- Improved market access for producers, with a particular focus on benefitting areas with widespread multidimensional poverty:
- Market Access and Quality Improvement Strategies.
- Quality certification.
- Inclusive value addition can improve product quality and convenience in use, significantly reducing food loss and waste (FLW) while providing more equitable benefits to all stakeholders.
- Improved access to finance. Particular emphasis should be places on improving finance access for low income and marginalized groups. Supporting interventions can include:
- Government-established loan facilities that require minimal collateral.
- Direct finance of fish processing businesses by microfinance institutions and banks with adjusted repayment options.
- Training on financial and business management.
- Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLAs) schemes and banks that can particularly benefit women.
- Facilitated cross-border trade.
- Skills and knowledge related to handling, processing and marketing practices.
- Accessing and using technology or equipment. For example, use of mobile phones and other information technology solutions to undertake transactions and make distribution and marketing more efficient.
Enabling governance measures are key to supporting the reduction of post-harvest food loss in fisheries. Such measures can include:
- Adoption of a national strategy for reducing food loss and waste:
- The strategy should include action for preventing and reducing fish loss within national borders including programs, policies, practices, incentives and/or related measures to influence the actions of fishing communities, companies and political bodies.
- Active engagement of governments, non-governmental organizations, private sector and the philanthropic community in investment platforms for cold-chain and improved infrastructure.
- Increase of technological research and development led by private and public sector and academia. Public food systems and fishery research, as well as other public investments in rural areas, should place emphasis on ensuring equitable outcomes.
- Enabling regulatory environment:
- Laws, rules, and regulations related to fish catching, farming, handling, processing, preparation, labelling, and health and safety of workers in the sector.
- Local practices and by-laws for effective implementation.
- Interventions targeted at supporting vulnerable groups in fisheries value chains, especially women, poor and youth.
Some key tools and guides to support the successful reduction of post-harvest food loss in fisheries supply chains include:
Tools
FAO Framework for Action on Biodiversity for Food and Agriculture
The Framework was endorsed by the FAO Council in 2021. It contains more than 50 individual actions grouped into three strategic priority areas: characterization, assessment and monitoring; management (sustainable use and conservation); and institutional frameworks.
Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA): A strategic thinking framework for achieving sustainable development
Presents SEA as a strategic thinking framework for achieving sustainable development in marine and coastal planning and management. It emphasizes the relevance of SEA for sustainability in these contexts, explains what strategic thinking for sustainability in SEA entails, and demonstrates how this approach can enable integrated marine and coastal planning and management.
Guides
Climate Focus and WWF Reducing food waste in gastronomy sector, retail and at household level
See guidance in the policy option on reducing food waste in gastronomy sector, retail and at household level.
Climate Focus and WWF Reducing post-harvest food loss at storage, transport, and processing levels
See guidance in the policy option on reducing post-harvest food loss at storage, transport and processing levels.
FAO Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries
These guidelines aim to enhance food security, contribute to equitable development of fishing communities and sustainable resource utilization, and promote the sector’s role in a sustainable future. They cover both marine and inland fisheries, emphasizing human rights, equality, and participatory governance.
Sustainable Ocean Initiative (SOI) Training Materials
A set of training materials focusing on capacity‑building modules, accompanied by other learning opportunities under the SOI umbrella.
Reducing post-harvest food loss in fisheries supply chains can also help advance the targets of the UAE Framework for Global Climate Resilience, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KM-GBF), as well as those of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Climate change mitigation benefits
Reducing post-harvest food loss in fisheries supply chains can play a key role in reducing GHG emissions:
- Climate-smart cold-chain technology directly reduces GHG emissions from energy consumption and refrigerant leakage associated with cold-chain infrastructure. See Improving energy use in food storage, cold chains, transport, and processing.
- Reducing fish loss improves the productivity and efficiency of the value chain, lowering the fish production required to meet a given demand. Consequently, fewer energy resources are needed to deliver fish to end-consumers, reducing the carbon intensity of the entire supply chain.
- Reductions in waste lower methane emissions associated with decaying, unsold or unconsumed produce.
- Recent research suggests that fish are an essential component of the ocean’s carbon sink. As fish loss is reduced, the need for overfishing to meet demand may decrease. This would positively impact the recovery of global or regional fish stocks, improving the carbon sequestration potential of oceans.
Climate change adaptation benefits
Among the seven key areas of adaptation put forward in the UAE Framework for Global Climate Resilience, reducing post-harvest losses in fisheries supply chains can directly contribute to:
- Target 9b (Food & Agriculture): By minimizing losses after harvest, more fish reach consumers, improving food security. This supports sustainable food systems and helps ensure adequate, reliable food supplies in the face of climate shocks.
- Target 9c (Ecosystems): Efficient fisheries reduce the need for overfishing, which helps protect marine ecosystems. Less waste means less pressure on fish stocks and healthier and more resilient aquatic environments.
- Target 9d (Health): Fish is an important source of protein, vitamins, minerals, and essential fatty acids. Ensuring more fish are safely delivered for consumption therefore improves access to nutritious food, supporting better health outcomes and resilience against climate-related health challenges.
- Target 9f (Livelihoods): Reducing losses lowers operational costs and increases the income and stability of those working in fisheries and related supply chains. This strengthens livelihoods and helps communities adapt to climate change impacts.
Biodiversity benefits
In addition, action under this policy option can help to deliver on multiple KM-GBF targets, in particular:
- Target 10 (Enhance Biodiversity and Sustainability in Agriculture, Aquaculture, Fisheries, and Forestry): Lowering losses can reduce the pressure on fish populations by decreasing the need for overfishing to meet market demands. As fish stocks recover, there is a potential for improved biodiversity within aquatic ecosystems. Healthy fish populations contribute to the stability of marine environments, supporting various species and ecological functions.
- Target 16 (Enable Sustainable Consumption Choices To Reduce Waste and Overconsumption): The target includes an element that explicitly calls for the 50% reduction in food loss by 2030. Policies aiming to reduce post-harvest food loss in fisheries align with that commitment.
- Target 20 (Strengthen Capacity-Building, Technology Transfer, and Scientific and Technical Cooperation for Biodiversity): Collaboration between research institutions and local fisheries fosters innovation in post-harvest management. Furthermore, technology transfer initiatives can enhance access to these advancements, ensuring that small-scale fishers can benefit from improved preservation methods.
Other sustainable development benefits
Reducing post-harvest food loss in fisheries supply chains can also help contribute to the progress of the following SDGs:
- SDG 1 (No Poverty): Reducing post-harvest losses can increase the income and economic stability of people working in fisheries, especially smallholders. This supports poverty reduction by improving livelihoods.
- SDG 2 (Zero Hunger): By minimizing losses, more fish reach consumers, improving food security and nutrition. This helps ensure access to safe and sufficient food for all.
- SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-Being): Ensuring more fish are safely delivered for consumption improves access to nutritious food, supporting better health and well-being.
- SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production): Efficient use of resources and less waste in fisheries supply chains promotes sustainable production and consumption patterns.
- SDG 13 (Climate Action): Reducing post-harvest food loss in fisheries supply chains can play a key role in reducing GHG emissions as outlined above, for instance from energy consumption, while promoting adaptation and resilience.
- SDG 14 (Life Below Water): By reducing waste and the need for overfishing, post-harvest loss reduction helps protect marine ecosystems and supports sustainable use of ocean resources.
The success of action under this policy depends on well-designed and effectively implemented interventions. However, these efforts often face technical and non-technical challenges, alongside potential negative externalities and trade-offs that can undermine their outcomes, including:
- Commercial (business model) risks associated with investments in climate-smart refrigeration, cold storage, ice-making and cold transportation operations.
- Technical operation of cold-chain technologies and lack of appropriate skills to maintain equipment.
- Interventions to modernize processing methods could displace culturally significant traditional practices tied to community livelihoods, particularly for women.
Integrating the following measures into a comprehensive and cohesive framework can help address implementation challenges and minimize potential trade-offs:
- For improving bycatch use and preserving bycatch on vessels, buy-in is needed from crew and vessel owners who have incentives to align themselves with a specific processing industry that prioritizes a target species.
- For reducing cold-chain investment risks: In developing economies, investments in climate-smart (renewable energy-based/off-grid solutions) cold-chain operations should be led by community members who are motivated to generate profit and can manage support contracts. In addition, these privately managed businesses should return profits to the community through the use of community profit-sharing models.
- For reducing cold-chain maintenance costs: Innovative models need to be created with cold-chain technology companies to support the development of technical expertise on maintenance within communities. Communities could benefit from public or private sector financial support to create cold-chain economies that sustain ongoing repair of cold-chain technology.
- For avoiding overfishing:
- Adopt binding regulations to ban overfishing.
- Regulate cold storage capacity on vessels.
- Offer incentives for businesses that are willing to share data and be transparent in efforts to support sustainable fisheries and reduce overfishing.
- Incorporate behavioural insights into policy and programs.
- Adopt a multi-stakeholder consultative approach, ensuring the meaningful participation of marginalized communities and groups facing potential adverse impacts or potential benefits.
- Climate-smart approach to development of cold-chain infrastructure. See Improving energy use in food storage, cold chains, transport, and processing.
Successfully monitoring reductions in post-harvest food loss within fisheries supply chains requires robust tracking systems, well-defined indicators, and structured frameworks that reflect both the progress of implementation and its impacts on biodiversity and climate outcomes.
Indicators to monitor biodiversity outcomes
The Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity agreed to a comprehensive set of headline, component, and complementary indicators for tracking progress toward the targets of the KM-GBF. Some of these indicators could also be functional for monitoring the implementation of this policy option. These indicators are:
| KM-GBF Target | Headline or binary indicator | Optional disaggregation | Component indicator | Complementary indicator |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Target 1 | 1.b Number of countries using participatory, integrated and biodiversity-inclusive spatial planning and/or effective management processes addressing land- and sea-use change to bring the loss of areas of high biodiversity importance close to zero by 2030 | |||
| Target 10 | 5.CY.3 Red List Index (impacts of fisheries) | |||
| Target 16 | 16.b Number of countries developing, adopting or implementing policy instruments aimed at encouraging and enabling people to make sustainable consumption choices | 16.CT.1 Food Waste Index 16.CT.2 Material footprint, material footprint per capita, and material footprint per GDP 16.CT.3 Ecological footprint | ||
| Target 20 | 20.b Number of countries that have taken significant action to strengthen capacity-building and development and access to and transfer of technology, and to promote the development of and access to innovation and technical and scientific cooperation | 20.CT.1 Total amount of funding for developing countries to promote the development, transfer, dissemination and diffusion of environmentally sound technologies |
Tools to monitor biodiversity outcomes
Global Fishing Watch Platform
Provides open-access data visualizations and analysis tools to monitor human activity at sea, supporting transparency and sustainable fisheries management on a global scale. Their marine manager portal also provides insights into critical environmental and oceanographic data that affect Marine Protected Areas, helping protected marine biodiversity.
Tools to monitor climate outcomes
Environmental Defense Fund Climate-Resilient Fisheries Toolkit
A suite of participatory tools and resources for fishing communities to assess climate vulnerability, plan adaptation strategies, and build resilience in fisheries. It includes tools like the Climate Vulnerability Assessment.
Gulf of Maine Research Institute Climate and Fisheries Data Dashboard
Offers interactive data visualizations and time series graphs for key climate and fisheries indicators (e.g., sea surface temperature, bottom temperatures, chlorophyll) in the Northeast US, helping managers track ecosystem changes and anticipate climate impacts.
San Diego State University Fisheries and Climate Toolkit (FaCeT)
A NASA-funded, bi-coastal platform that tracks fisheries-relevant physical and biological ocean features, visualizes dynamic species and vessel distributions, and supports climate-ready fisheries management through dynamic ocean management principles.
Costs and investment requirements will vary depending on the specific intervention and country context; however, the following estimates reflect regional differences:
- For solar driers across Africa, Asia and Europe, the estimated investment costs range from €10 for the small solar drier to €20,000 for the integrated community solar drier and €100,000 for the Atmospheric Freeze Dryer (AFD), excluding the costs for the generation of solar electricity for less than €20,000.
Examples of notable initiatives implemented globally include:
- The Sri Lankan Ministry of Fisheries and FAO have launched an initiative to introduce new designs of multiday fishing vessels to improve the quality of fish and reduce post-harvest loss in the fisheries sector. The first vessel that was put in use in January 2023 is a modified multi-day vessel featuring a pilot coolant system in fish holds and storage as well as a modified fish holding facility to minimize the physical damage to fish due to overload.
- KeepITCool (“KIC”), a company set up in 2020 which aims to address post-harvest fish losses in Kenya, has been testing a blended Containers as a Service (CaaS) and software service models with fishers to lower the cold-chain access barriers for small-scale fishers. KIC has partnered with a small-scale fishers’ association along Lake Victoria to provide an integrated cold-chain solution, develop an online trading platform, and deliver products. KIC delivers reports that provide insights on how access to off-grid cooling can increase financial outcomes and how to address cold storage needs of first mile consumers. 39% of fishers using these services and products reported reduced wastage and 31% reported increased income.
- The CAPFISH-Capture project, co-funded by the European Union and implemented by UNIDO, in collaboration with the Fisheries Administration, private sector participants, universities, and various support institutions, aims to enhance the development of post-harvest fisheries. This initiative focuses on upgrading regulatory and institutional frameworks while promoting the adoption of improved practices and innovative solutions within the private sector.
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