Urban Amazonians use Fishing as a Strategy for Coping with Food Insecurity

Fishing provides livelihoods and food for millions of people in the Global South yet inland fisheries are under-researched and neglected in food and nutrition policy. This paper goes beyond the rural focus of existing research and examines how urban households may use fishing as a livelihood strategy for coping with food insecurity. Our study in Brazilian Amazonia is based on a random sample of households (n = 798) in four remote riverine towns. We quantitatively examine the inter-connections between fishing and food insecurity, and find that fishing is a widespread coping strategy among disadvantaged, food insecure households. Fisher households tend to be highly dependent on eating fish, and for these households, consuming fish more often is associated with a modest reduction in food insecurity risks. Fishing provides monthly non-monetary income worth ≤ USD54 (equivalent to ∼12% of mean monetary income), potentially reducing food insecurity risks almost as much as the conditional cash transfer <i>Bolsa Família.</i> We estimate that nearly half a million inhabitants of the region’s remote, riverine urban centres are directly dependent on a household member catching fish, a nutritious and culturally preferred food. Consequently, small-scale urban fishers must be recognised in policy debates around food and nutrition security and management of natural resources.

在全球南方（Global South），捕鱼为数百万人提供了生计与食物保障，但内陆渔业（inland fisheries）尚未得到充分研究，且在粮食与营养政策中被忽视。本研究突破了既有研究仅聚焦农村的局限，考察城市家庭如何将捕鱼作为应对粮食不安全（food insecurity）的生计策略（livelihood strategy）。本研究以巴西亚马逊地区四个偏远沿河城镇的798户家庭随机抽样样本（random sample）为基础（样本量n=798）。我们通过定量分析探究了捕鱼与粮食不安全之间的内在联系，结果显示，捕鱼是弱势粮食不安全家庭广泛采用的应对手段。捕捞家庭通常高度依赖鱼类作为食物，而这类家庭更频繁地食用鱼类，与粮食不安全风险的小幅降低存在相关性。捕鱼每月可带来不超过54美元（USD）的非货币收入（non-monetary income），约相当于该地区平均货币收入的12%，其降低粮食不安全风险的潜力几乎与有条件现金转移支付（conditional cash transfer）计划巴西家庭补助金（Bolsa Família）相当。我们估算，该地区偏远沿河城镇中心近50万居民直接依靠家庭成员捕鱼为生，而鱼类是兼具营养与文化偏好的优质食物。因此，在围绕粮食与营养安全及自然资源管理的政策讨论中，必须认可并重视小规模城市渔民群体的价值与地位。