Oceans & Food
Our food systems will need to feed 9 billion people by 2050, but food from oceans, rivers, and lakes—also known as blue food—has not been well integrated into potential solutions. Land use change, nutrient inputs from agriculture, and increasing demand for animal protein are all likely to place additional stress on blue food systems and affect their productivity.
Together with Stanford’s Center on Food Security and the Environment, Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University, and EAT, we created the Blue Food Assessment – an international effort to put blue food in the center of the global food policy agenda. The Blue Food Assessment brought together more than 100 leading researchers from more than 25 institutions around the world and was the first comprehensive review of aquatic foods and their roles in the global food system.
To date, eight Assessment papers have published in various Springer-Nature journals. Alongside the papers, a synthesis for policymakers was presented at the UN Food Systems Summit in 2021 to help guide diverse decision-makers – governments, companies, and consumers – whose choices will shape the future of food and of the ocean. The Blue Food Assessment provided a foundation for other Oceans & Food efforts, including evaluating blue foods in climate strategies, national and regional assessments, and building a global network of blue food researchers.
Explore our work

Blue foods in Indonesia
Analyses to inform policies that improve nutrition, food security, and livelihoods
Learn moreRelated News & Media
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September 26, 2023
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More than 90% of global aquatic food production faces substantial risk from environmental change, finds new research
Researchers at the Stanford Center for Ocean Solutions and other institutions find that the vulnerability of blue foods to environmental change has been vastly understudied.
June 26, 2023
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Stanford Center for Ocean Solutions leads two-year project to evaluate the potential of blue foods in climate adaptation and mitigation strategies
Center researchers and partners will analyze how policymakers can ensure blue foods support climate-resilient food systems while protecting livelihoods and food security.
May 10, 2023
Related Publications
- Cao, L., Halpern, B., Troell, M., Short, R., Zeng, C., Jiang, Z., Liu, Y., & et al, . (2023). Vulnerability of blue foods to human-induced environmental change. Nature Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-023-01156-y
- Wabnitz, C., Naylor, R., Smith, N., Tuqa, A., & Leape, J. (2023). Strengthening the role of blue foods in coastal Pacific food systems. New Zealand Economic Papers, 57(2), 78-86. https://doi.org/10.1080/00779954.2023.2222761
- Stanford Center for Ocean Solutions, . (2023). Blue Foods and Climate Policy Brief. https://bit.ly/BlueFoodsClimate
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