Box 1
The fish that never reaches the plate
“Over half a million tons of pelagic fish that could feed over 33 million people… [is] extracted from the ocean along the coast of West Africa and converted to fishmeal and fish oil.” – UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food[1]
As the UN Special Rapporteur has stated, hunger is not caused by a lack of food; it is not a production problem. Rather, it results from a food system in which global feed companies exacerbate food insecurity by processing wild fish into fishmeal and oil[2]. In 2024, more than 18 million tonnes of wild-caught fish—equivalent to 23% of total marine capture—was turned into fishmeal and oil. Peru and Chile account for the largest share of global production, though this is vulnerable to El Niño.
While precise data are difficult to obtain for all countries and regions, in India alone an estimated 1 million tonnes of wild fish reportedly ended up in some 50 fish-processing factories in 2018[3]. A further roughly 450 factories, spread across 62 countries[4], account for the majority of the remainder. A significant share of this fish—if not most of it—could instead be used as food for people, rather than feeding a globalised system in which anchovies caught in one part of the world are fed to shrimp in another, only to be processed and sold to middle-income or wealthy consumers elsewhere.
Box 2
Seaweed and marine geoengineering
Just as REDD+ (“reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation”) allowed corporations to grab forests from Indigenous Peoples in the name of carbon offsetting, polluters now plan to turn the ocean into a carbon casino, using large-scale seaweed cultivation as a form of aquaculture, combined with marine geoengineering technologies to generate carbon credits.
Geoengineering refers to unproven, high-risk technologies supposedly intended to slow or reverse global heating. Marine geoengineering technologies dangerously threaten ocean integrity, altering the biogeochemistry of the ocean and irreversibly impacting marine communities and ecosystems. Techniques include ocean fertilization (adding nutrients such as minerals and biomass), ocean alkalinity enhancement (dumping masses of minerals to reduce acidification), and marine cloud brightening (spraying seawater to ‘brighten’ clouds). Techniques deployed in seaweed aquaculture include biomass sinking and artificial upwelling (placing pipes deep in the ocean, pumping cool water to the surface) to induce seaweed growth.
Natural and traditionally managed seaweed ecosystems are among the most biodiverse and productive areas in nature. Indigenous Peoples, coastal and fishing communities have rejected industrial seaweed monocultures because of the cultural, economic, environmental and human rights risks. Here, aquaculture meets geoengineering, ocean grabbing and the disruption of fisherfolks’ livelihoods. Seaweed aquaculture combines false solutions which threaten livelihoods while reducing the immeasurable value of our oceans to saleable units, maximized for profit in the bogus business of ‘saving the planet’.
Box 3
Defending the commons is a feminist cause
Industrial aquaculture is a form of extractivism being driven by market-led motivations such as profit maximization at the expense of exceeding ecological limits. Methods of industrial aquaculture rely heavily on mass production and chemical treatment of the water body, leading to large amounts of waste. The local fisherfolk are dispossessed of their right to food sovereignty as corporate power commodifies fisheries.
The World March of Women defends life over profit and protects the commons for the sustainability of life. Ocean and aquatic environments are commons as well, that is why defending the oceans as commons is a feminist cause. As the World March of Women, we place our struggle against transnational corporations at the core of our movement. In our struggle to defend life over profit, we rise against industrial aquaculture and stand with the fisherwomen!
Women’s labor in fisheries
In capitalism, women’s labor remains unrecognized. So, as in industrial aquaculture, fisherwomen face legal and social obstacles. Although fisherwomen work long hours and contribute a large share of the income of the fisherfolk’s family, their work remains unrecognized. Fisherwomen are perceived as ancillary workers. Unlike licensed fishermen, fisherwomen, whose labor is unrecognized[5], cannot access institutional credit or social security benefits.
Even in places where fisherwomen are recognized, they are still not part of the policy-making process, which limits their ability to effect change.
Box 4
Chile for sale: the rise of the salmon industry
Pinochet’s dictatorship paved the way for the salmon industry in Chile. Today, the country is the world’s second-largest producer of farmed salmon—millions of tonnes are processed each year and exported to the world’s major economies. It is marketed as a “sustainable” food, despite evidence of the intensive use of antibiotics and other chemicals, as well as the introduction of non-native species, which are responsible for the destruction of lake ecosystems, rivers, and inland seas.
The government is granting concessions in protected areas in southern Chile without taking into account that these form part of the Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS). Marcela Ramos, a member of the Assembly of Island Women for the Waters (AMIPA), is a defender of Chiloé[6] territory, where the salmon farming industry has been polluting the waters for decades. The industry now breeds juvenile salmon in freshwater lakes, transports them to reach maturity in protected areas in Patagonia that were granted concessions, and then returns them to Chiloé for processing. Groups such as AMIPA seek to raise awareness of conflicts and environmental neglect, and develop proposals for community solutions.
As well as causing environmental pollution, the salmon farming industry has claimed the lives of many people who have worked in the precarious conditions that are characteristic of the industry: Between 2003 and 2026, there have been 93 fatalities. The National Network of Women in Small-Scale Fisheries has helped expose the dangers faced by workers in this industry, such as the divers in charge of cleaning the nets in aquaculture pens.
In 2010, the government passed a sea privatisation law which protects the salmon farming industry at the expense of small-scale. It allows the industry to privatise the concessions granted by the state and use them to apply for loans from private banks, resulting in the privatisation of a large part of the sea. All of this is causing conflicts between the people and the government.
The Werkén (messenger) Francisco Vera Millaquén lives in Pargua, just a few metres from salmon feed factories. The expansion of this industry has caused conflicts between families—those who work in it do not want to lose their jobs, whilst others are defending their land and their way of life as fisherfolk.
Werkén Francisco’s community has been denouncing corruption and the influence of the salmon industry on government decisions for years. Today, this is reflected in attempts to amend the Lafkenche Law[7], which protects the rights of coastal communities and their food sovereignty.
Box 5
Industrial aquaculture and public health: An urgent socio-environmental justice agenda
Industrial aquaculture is increasingly promoted as a solution to global food insecurity and as a key component of the “Blue Transformation.” Yet its rapid expansion raises important public health questions that remain insufficiently examined.
The People’s Health Movement affirms the right of all people to nutritious, healthy, and affordable food produced through dignified livelihoods and food systems that minimize harm to people, communities, and the environment. This rights-based perspective underscores the need to evaluate aquaculture not only by its production potential, but also by its impacts on health, equity, and ecological sustainability.
Intensive aquaculture systems often rely on antibiotics, pesticides, disinfectants, and other chemical inputs to maximize production. These practices may expose workers to hazardous substances, contribute to the contamination of surrounding water bodies, and potentially result in chemical residues in aquatic food products. The routine use of antibiotics also raises concerns about antimicrobial resistance, one of the most significant global public health challenges.
Public health considerations extend beyond chemical exposure. Industrial aquaculture may contribute to declining water quality, biodiversity loss, and the replacement of native species, with implications for ecosystem health, nutrition, and food security. Expansion of industrial production has also been associated with the displacement of small-scale fishing communities and the erosion of traditional livelihoods, affecting the broader social determinants of health.
Despite the sector’s rapid growth, significant research gaps remain regarding occupational health, consumer exposure, nutritional quality, environmental contamination, and the cumulative health impacts of intensive aquaculture systems.
As governments and international institutions continue to promote aquaculture expansion, independent, interdisciplinary research must keep pace. Public health evidence should inform policy alongside production and economic objectives. We call on researchers, health professionals, policymakers, and social movements to collaborate in building a stronger evidence base and to ensure that future aquatic food systems advance health, environmental sustainability, human rights, and food sovereignty.
Box 6
Nyéléni, solidarity and philanthropy
The Nyéléni Process, an internationalist expression of social movements, began out of necessity. So did the new framework of Solidarity Philanthropy launched by Grassroots International alongside several global social movements last year. This framework, or pathway, sets new parameters on how philanthropy should function to protect social movements’ financial autonomy.
The 3rd Nyéléni Global Forum served as the starting point to establish Solidarity Philanthropy as a collective strategy between people in philanthropy and grassroots organizations. After decades of working in silos, allies saw the 3rd Global Forum as a chance to confront a key challenge for the sustainability of the Nyéléni Process together—the influence of philanthropy on social movements and how the institution was holding back communities that funders were supposed to support.
As a philanthropic model, Solidarity Philanthropy advocates for:
● Reckoning with our relationships to wealth. Understanding where money comes from helps us understand where it needs to go.
● Aligning grantmaking with movements’ goals of financial autonomy. Grants must fit movement priorities, not the other way around.
● Going beyond funding to deep allyship. Relationships must be grounded in learning and trust. Funders must speak up when movements are under attack.
● Investing in infrastructure that sustains movements. Physical infrastructure, language justice, secure communications, collective care, and more are essential to power social movements for the long haul.
● Organizing people in philanthropy in synergy with social movements’ priorities. Solidarity develops through relationships and shared action. Like fishers who learn from the waters that sustain them, we practice solidarity by actively engaging with each other.
The organizing behind this model seeks to contest the institution of philanthropy. The wealth hoarded in the hands of the few must reach back to the communities it came from. The 3rd Nyéléni Global Forum was an opportunity for movements and allied funders to build a shared praxis together grounded in solidarity and internationalism.
[1] Fakhri, M. (2024). Fisheries and the right to food in the context of climate change: Report of the Special Rapporteur on the right to food, UNHRC.
[2] FAO. Rome. 2026. The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2026 – Blue Transformation: turning vision into impact.
[3] Scholtens, J., Karuppiah, S., & Jyotishi, A. (2020). A Twisted Trajectory. Samudra Report, 83, 38-42.
[4] Lauren A. Shea et al. Spatial distribution of fishmeal and fish oil factories around the globe.
[5] In the fisheries economy, women work 17 hours every day, and they contribute 48% of the income in the fisherfolk’s family – video
[6] Chiloé is the name of both an archipelago and its largest island.
[7] Passed in 2008 following ten years of collective work, the law recognises and protects the rights of Indigenous Peoples over their traditional coastal areas through the creation of the Marine and Coastal Spaces for Indigenous Peoples (ECMPO).