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.

Through a partnership with Stanford’s Center on Food Security and the Environment, Stockholm Resilience Centre, and EAT, we created the Blue Food Assessment – an international effort to put blue food in the center of the global food policy agenda. This is the first comprehensive review of aquatic foods and their roles in the global food system.

We are working with a community of researchers investigating the many connections between oceans and the food system. This assessment comprises nine papers. To date, six 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.

Visit the Blue Food Assessment website

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