Achieving Seafood Security in the Mediterranean Region: A Case of Turkey

Introduction

Food is everything that people need to eat or drink to sustain their life. Access to sufficient food is accepted as a human right as same as access to clean water. Safe and clean water is important for ensuring food security in the long term (Gross et.al., 2000). Food is a fundamental need for well-being and health (UN, 2014) that the need of food is non-deferrable for people. In this point, food security and sustainability is a main challenge for the sustainability of future generations or world. Food security is related with hunger policies in general. For example, Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set 8 main targets to be achieved by 2015 and ending hunger or reducing the quantity of people suffering from hunger and poverty are all first issues to be achieved based on MDGs (Yıldırım and Yıldırım, 2020). Then, 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set 17 main goals and included ending hunger themes as Goal-2 (UN, 2015). Ending hunger is depended on food sustainability and security in the long term that achieving sustainable development goals are also linked with achieving food security (Diaz-Bonilla and Hepburn, 2016). Food security means that people access sufficient quantity of food anywhere and anytime. Food security included four basic dimensions as “physical availability, economic and physical access, food utilization, stability of other dimensions” (World Food Summit, 1996; FAO, 2006; FAO, 2008; Yildirim and Kaplan, 2020). Food access includes three basic elements as “physical, financial and socio-cultural” that all of them should be accessible for households and individuals in a country. Physical access means that people can purchase safe and sufficient quantity of food in their location and financial access means that people can afford cost of food. Also people should feel free to buy food (Napoli, 2011).

Seafood products play a major role in food security with providing food availability, food access, livelihoods and income and essential nutrients to poor commodities. However, food security issues generally don’t cover seafood products (Muir, 2013) and food security policies aren’t enough to achieve seafood sustainability and security. Based on food security definition, seafood security can be defined as “availability seafood products with rich nutrients and having access to them anytime and anywhere”. Keeping seafood security can support food security issues and fighting against hunger that investigating seafood security issues will contribute making alternative fishing and aquaculture policies in the long term. When investigating seafood security, HLPE (2014) report suggests that four food security dimensions can be transformed into seafood security. HLPE (2014) report determined food security for fish products as below:

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  Food availability means production and use of seafood products for human food and also feed product for farming or growing fish.

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  Food access is related with economic activities of seafood sector. Providing job, income, wealth, seafood sector is evaluated in the context of food access.

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  Food utilization means providing various kinds of fish or seafood and also providing adequate nutrients.

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  Food stabilization generally represent the sustainability of seafood security dimensions (availability, access, utilization)

The food of fisheries and aquaculture provide fundamental protein and nutrition sources as long-chain omega-3 fatty acids, iodine, vitamin D and calcium for people (FAO, 2018a). Fish products which can be produced by aquaculture or captured, provides primary source of protein for especially poor and low-income coastal countries. Fish is seen as the most available and affordable food for the coastal and developing countries in the world (Quaaset.al., 2016). People (such as from African and Asian countries) who are lack of accessing animal-origin protein, benefits from fish protein (USAID, 2016).