The global seafood trade, embodied nutrients, and nutritional affordability

Abstract

Globalization of seafood markets raises concerns about nutritional insecurity, as developing countries export nutrient-dense seafood to developed countries. However, imported seafood may offset nutritional losses from exports. Developing countries import seafood with low prices relative to developed countries, raising questions of whether low-price imports provide less nutrition and contribute to nutritional insecurity. We construct a dataset connecting country-level seafood trade flows to product-specific data on nutrient concentrations to investigate how the seafood trade affects nutritional affordability. We compare nutrient density per dollar in imported seafood. Across three macronutrients and six micronutrients and using six distinct classifications of development status, we consistently find that developing countries pay lower prices for nutrition in imported seafood than developed countries. We show that the nutritional bargain for developing countries partly reflects differences in the non-nutritional characteristics of seafood imports between developed and developing countries, including the extent of processing and product form.