An editorial in Nature, says:

Next week, world leaders will gather for the United Nations Food Systems Summit. The event will be hosted by UN secretary-general António Guterres, with the aim of giving a much-needed boost to efforts to get the agency’s flagship Sustainable Development Goals back on track.

One of these goals is to end hunger by 2030. Nearly 700 million people (almost 9% of the world’s population) go hungry; of those, 250 million are potentially on the brink of starvation, according to the World Food Programme. Even before COVID-19, there had been limited progress towards ending hunger. Unless the summit’s delegates take strong and coordinated action, 840 million will be going hungry by 2030.

This week, journals in the Nature Portfolio shine a spotlight on how aquatic food systems — sometimes called blue foods — can help to end hunger and accelerate the creation of a truly sustainable global food system (see go.nature.com/3nw8qbf).

The research is part of the Blue Food Assessment, a collaboration involving more than 100 researchers. It is the first systematic assessment of how aquatic food contributes to food security, helping to build a fuller picture of the global food system, beyond food from agriculture. [Continue reading…]