Review of aquaculture and fish consumption in Bangladesh

Fish play a crucial role in the Bangladeshi diet, providing more than 60% of animal source food, representing a crucial source of micro-nutrients, and possessing an extremely strong cultural attachment. Fish (including shrimp and prawn) is the second most valuable agricultural crop, and its production contributes to the livelihoods and employment of millions. The culture and consumption of fish therefore has important implications for national food and nutrition security, poverty and growth. This review examines the current state of knowledge on the aquaculture sector and fish consumption in Bangladesh, based on extensive analysis of secondary sources (including unpublished data unavailable elsewhere), consultation with various experts and specially conducted surveys. The review is comprised of three sections. Section 1 describes the main systems of aquaculture production in terms of their technical and social characteristics and outputs. Section 2 addresses issues relating to seed and feed. The final section analyses fish consumption patterns and demand, and attempts to estimate the volumes of fish produced from a range of sources.Food fish, Aquaculture, Food consumption, Fish consumption, Pond culture, Rice field aquaculture, Bangladesh,

Harnessing global fisheries to tackle micronutrient deficiencies

Micronutrient deficiencies account for an estimated one million premature deaths annually, and for some nations can reduce gross domestic product1,2 by up to 11%, highlighting the need for food policies that focus on improving nutrition rather than simply increasing the volume of food produced3. People gain nutrients from a varied diet, although fish—which are a rich source of bioavailable micronutrients that are essential to human health4—are often overlooked. A lack of understanding of the nutrient composition of most fish5 and how nutrient yields vary among fisheries has hindered the policy shifts that are needed to effectively harness the potential of fisheries for food and nutrition security6. Here, using the concentration of 7 nutrients in more than 350 species of marine fish, we estimate how environmental and ecological traits predict nutrient content of marine finfish species. We use this predictive model to quantify the global spatial patterns of the concentrations of nutrients in marine fisheries and compare nutrient yields to the prevalence of micronutrient deficiencies in human populations. We find that species from tropical thermal regimes contain higher concentrations of calcium, iron and zinc; smaller species contain higher concentrations of calcium, iron and omega-3 fatty acids; and species from cold thermal regimes or those with a pelagic feeding pathway contain higher concentrations of omega-3 fatty acids. There is no relationship between nutrient concentrations and total fishery yield, highlighting that the nutrient quality of a fishery is determined by the species composition. For a number of countries in which nutrient intakes are inadequate, nutrients available in marine finfish catches exceed the dietary requirements for populations that live within 100 km of the coast, and a fraction of current landings could be particularly impactful for children under 5 years of age. Our analyses suggest that fish-based food strategies have the potential to substantially contribute to global food and nutrition security

Efficient Excitation of Channel Plasmons in Tailored, UV-Lithography-Defined V-Grooves

[Image: see text] We demonstrate the highly efficient (>50%) conversion of freely propagating light to channel plasmon-polaritons (CPPs) in gold V-groove waveguides using compact 1.6 μm long waveguide-termination coupling mirrors. Our straightforward fabrication process, involving UV-lithography and crystallographic silicon etching, forms the coupling mirrors innately and ensures exceptional-quality, wafer-scale device production. We tailor the V-shaped profiles by thermal silicon oxidation in order to shift initially wedge-located modes downward into the V-grooves, resulting in well-confined CPPs suitable for nanophotonic applications

Recognize fish as food in policy discourse and development funding

The international development community is off-track from meeting targets for alleviating global malnutrition. Meanwhile, there is growing consensus across scientific disciplines that fish plays a crucial role in food and nutrition security. However, this ‘fish as food’ perspective has yet to translate into policy and development funding priorities. We argue that the traditional framing of fish as a natural resource emphasizes economic development and biodiversity conservation objectives, whereas situating fish within a food systems perspective can lead to innovative policies and investments that promote nutrition-sensitive and socially equitable capture fisheries and aquaculture. This paper highlights four pillars of research needs and policy directions toward this end. Ultimately, recognizing and working to enhance the role of fish in alleviating hunger and malnutrition can provide an additional long-term development incentive, beyond revenue generation and biodiversity conservation, for governments, international development organizations, and society more broadly to invest in the sustainability of capture fisheries and aquaculture