Harvard University T. H. Chan School of Public Health
MA, USA.
Short Bio
I am an environmental scientist with research interests in food systems, ecology, and sustainability. My current research at the Harvard School of Public Healthaims to explore the links between environment and nutrition in the context of global fisheries and promote nutrition-sensitive aquaculture. During my PhD my research was focused on understanding the implications of production and consumption of terrestrial animal based products in the USA on the environment and assess these trends within the broader context of food security. In my past I have worked both in the private sector and civil society, with the latter focused on community and women empowerment within the Bedouin community in the Negev region. Together with my interest in permaculture design and environmental sciences, my work in the Israeli Forum of Sustainable Nutrition (NGO) has been focused on disseminating evidence-based information about food to the public and implementing sustainable food systems and diets in Israel.
Abstract- Nutrition sensitive aquaculture: meeting the dual challenge of nutritional security and environmental sustainability
Malnutrition is still a major public health concern in developing countries, with micronutrient deficiencies persisting in large proportions across various population stratum. Fish are a critical source of micronutrients in many developing countries and thus can play a vital role in addressing these micronutrient deficiencies. Because declines in wild fish catch threaten nutritionally vulnerable populations, fish farming (aquaculture) presents an opportunity to meet local seafood demandand mitigate nutritional shortfalls. In this talk I demonstrate a ‘nutrition sensitive’ approachto aquaculture across three cases studies differing in time and scale: present aquaculture production (Bangladesh), future development scenarios (Indonesia) and a global scale scenario (for omega 3). Despite being large producers and consumers of fish, Bangladesh and Indonesia's farmed fish production lacks a‘nutrition-sensitive’ approach and does not target persisting malnutrition. Here, I identify systems in these locations with a high potential to contribute to sustainable development by comparing the human nutritional and environmental tradeoffs and synergies across species and production systems with a consistent methodology. I apply these results to specify aquaculture systems, both present and future, that will optimally meet nation-specific nutritional needs while minimizing environmental costs. On a global scale, preliminary results of an ongoing research reveal that global production of omega 3 via fisheries and aquaculture is suboptimal and can be increased. However, projecting into the future, closing the prevailing omega 3 gapbetween supply and demand will be increasingly difficult primarily due to large increases in demand on account of population growth especially in Asia and Africa.