Freshwater fish for nutrition security in India: Evidence from FAO data

- The present paper analyses relative role of fish in the nutritional security of India based on the food balance sheet data of FAO available for the period 1961-2013.
- The apparent fish consumption per capita per year in India has increased primarily due to increase in freshwater fish availability from 0.7 kg/cap/year in 1961 to 3.48 kg/cap/year in 2013, enabling increase in the overall fish availability from 1.9 to 5.04 kg/cap/year during this period.
- In 1961, fish contributed only 0.5 g/cap/day of protein which has increased to 1.53 g/cap/day in 2013. At present (2013) fish contributes 12.8 % of animal protein which has increased from 8.2% (1961. With exclusion of milk, fish is the largest contributors of non-vegetarian protein among Indians.
- More than two-third of the protein supply in fish was contributed by freshwater fishes.
- The freshwater fishes production has grown rapidly at the rate of 5.0 per cent in last five decades- which is next to poultry sector- has tremendous potential to further increase its share to the net animal protein and total protein availability in the country.

sThe nutritional dimension is integral to the concept of food security. A wide range of food commodities are required to fulfill nutritional security need of the people. Animal proteins which include milk, fish, meat and egg are essentially required for nutritionally balanced diets which are available from diverse food commodities. The fish in general and freshwater fish in particular are among the fast growing sectors with increasing contributions in the nutrition security of Indian consumers. The present paper analyses relative role of fish in the nutritional security of India based on the food balance sheet data of FAO available for the period 1961-2013. The apparent fish consumption per capita per year in India has increased primarily due to increase in freshwater fish availability from 0.7 kg/cap/year in 1961-3.48 kg/cap/year in 2013, enabling increase in the overall fish availability from 1.9 to 5.04 kg/cap/year during this period. During 1961-2013, contributions of freshwater fish to non-vegetarian protein, animal protein and total protein increased from 9.1 to 27.2, 3.3-8.7 and 0.4-1.7%, respectively