Category: Research

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Research

Dried Fish Consumption in Myanmar

Retailer selling multiple varieties of dried fish in Mon State

The patterns of dried fish consumption in Myanmar varies across the country in terms of types and quantity of products. Regardless of their importance as a source of human nutrition and cultural value, there have been no dedicated studies of dried fish consumption in the country. Thus, the DFM Myanmar team consisting of Ben Belton, and Network Activities Group NAG conducted a study of dried fish consumption in Myanmar especially in the areas where NAG offices are located between October 2019 and March 2020.

The study areas cover the three geographical zones of Myanmar, the Delta and Coastal Region, the Dry Zone, and the Hill. The Delta and Coastal Region includes Ayeyarwady, Yangon and Bago regions and Mon State.

Map of surveyed townships

Key findings

  • Almost every respondent household (94%) except in Northern Shan had consumed at least one type of fresh or processed fish at least once in the last seven days.
  • Processed fish was slightly more likely to be consumed than fresh fish across seven of the eight surveyed states and regions.
  • The most consumed fish product was fermented fish products followed by dried fish and dried shrimp, and they were the most frequently consumed. Nga-pi-yay (liquid fish paste) is the most eaten fermented fish product, particularly in the Delta and Coastal Region.
  • Dried fish were the second most common category of processed fish product consumed, and 45 species of dried fish were identified. Many respondents reported being unable to identify the species.
  • Average annual per capita ‘dried fish’ consumption (in the broad sense, including all aquatic animal products processed to aid preservation at ambient temperatures) was consistently high, ranging from 13.2-16.4 kg in Delta and Coastal, Mandalay and Kayin, and 8 kg in Sagaing, but only 2 kg/capita in Shan North.

The study is the first ever dedicated large-scale survey of dried fish consumption habits in Myanmar. It reveals numerous important insights into role and significance of dried fish consumption in the country, which might be missed or underreported when using less specialized survey instruments, with important implications for the design of future surveys.

Reference

Lin, Si Thu, Ben Belton, and Wae Win Khaing. 2022. “Myanmar Dried Fish Consumption Survey.” Dried Fish Matters.

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Research

Presence of microplastics in two common dried marine fish species from Bangladesh

Microplastics are carried into the Bay of Bengal by three major riverine systems, which carry contaminants from hundreds of rivers originating in Bangladesh and neighbouring countries. These plastics are also introduced through the breakdown of fishing lines and nets that have been lost at sea, which are driven to shallow coastal waters through ocean currents. Improper disposal of plastic waste along the popular tourist beaches of Cox’s Bazar and Kuakata also contributes to pollution in the Bay of Bengal.

The identification of microplastics in dried Bombay duck and ribbon fish is highly troubling. These fish products are typically consumed whole, causing potentially toxic microplastics to enter the bodies of human consumers and to accumulate in their organs.

Millions of people in Bangladesh regularly consume dried fish, and the country is producing increasing quantities of plastics. Yet the effects on many millions of consumers of regularly ingesting microplastics with dried fish are unknown. Consumers in Bangladesh are largely unaware of the possible dangers, and the government has not established a system for monitoring microplastics in food products.

In light of the high levels of microplastics contamination identified in the present study, the authors recommend that the relevant ministries and government departments work together to identify long-term solutions to the potentially grave risks posed by the increasing presence of microplastics in dried fish and other food products.

Microscopic images of selected microplastics: a, b & c – fibers; d, e & f – fragments; g, h & i – films; j – microbeads; k – pellets; and l – foams.

Highlights

  • Microplastics (MP) were identified in the two most common marine dried fish products in Bangladesh.
  • High levels of MP were found in all samples of both fish species from two locations.
  • Fibers were the most common type of MP identified.
  • ATR-FTIR analysis of dried fish samples revealed polymer types of polyethylene, polystyrene and polyamide.
  • MP in dried fish may be transferred to the human body through consumption, with unknown health effects.

Abstract

We examined microplastics (MP) in two commercially important dried fish, Bombay duck (Harpadon nehereus) and ribbon fish (Trichiurus lepturus), collected from two sites on the Bay of Bengal (Cox’s Bazar and Kuakata). The number of MP found in dried Bombay duck and ribbon fish from Kuakata was significantly higher (41.33 g−1 and 46.00 g−1, respectively) than the MP present in samples collected from Cox’s Bazar (28.54 g−1 and 34.17 g−1, respectively). Fibers were the most common type of MP identified in all samples (41–64%), followed by fragments (22–34%), microbeads (9–16%), films (3–4%), foams (1–4%), and pellets (0–2%). ATR-FTIR analysis revealed three different types of MP polymer – polyethylene (35–45%), polystyrene (20–30%) and polyamide (30–45%) in the dried fish samples. The study confirms the presence of high MP loads in dried fish from the Bay of Bengal, with high potential of trophic transfer of MP to the human body.

Citation

Hasan, Jabed, SM Majharul Islam, Md Samsul Alam, Derek Johnson, Ben Belton, Mostafa Ali Reza Hossain, and Md Shahjahan. 2022. “Presence of Microplastics in Two Common Dried Marine Fish Species from Bangladesh.” Marine Pollution Bulletin 176: 113430. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2022.113430

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Research

A social-ecological systems perspective on dried fish value chains

Sisir Pradhan, Prateep Nayak, and Derek Armitage advocate a conceptual departure from a neoclassical economic orientation of dried fish value chains to an emphasis on linked social-ecological systems (SES) perspective, defined as an integrated, coupled, interdependent and co-evolutionary system with mutual vertical and horizontal feedbacks between ecological and social subsystems (Berkes et al., 2003).

You can download their Open Access article here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666049022000068.

Key messages

  • The conventional dried fish value chain follows a narrow neoclassical economic perspective.
  • It fails to factor in non-capital relations of dried fish shaped by specific histories, ecologies, people, and practices.
  • SES-oriented dried fish value chain (SESVC) reconceptualizes the dried fish value chain by considering fisheries resource system as a critical new node.
  • SESVC puts Primacy on integration of human and environmental dimensions and social well-being of upstream value chain actors.

Conceptualization of SESVC

Conceptual framework of SES oriented dried fish value chain

The figure above (fig. 5 in the published article) provides an initial hybrid and interdisciplinary conceptual framing of a SES-oriented dried fish value chain (SESVC). The framework includes several novel ideas in terms of its main components and cross-scale interactions. 

First, the framework introduces the resource base or the fisheries ecosystem as a central and/or novel node in the dried fish value chain. This positioning comes at the cost of excluding the fish and the fishers. The principle that ‘if there is no fish (and its habitat) there is no dried fish’ will become a reality if we continue to exclude the resource and ecosystem node from the value chain . The resource node is fundamentally dynamic and that determines the price, product, livelihoods of resource dependent communities and the regulating framework which are critical to the functioning of the value chain. 

Second, the SES value chain perspective places the producing and processing, trading, retailing, and consumer nodes from the conventional value chain along with the new resource and ecosystem node in a two-way feedback relationship. Doing so clarifies that these nodes are bound by multiple interactions across several scales and levels of the entire value chain – that they are in fact ‘co-produced’.

Third, the framework reflects a social-ecological system view of the dried fish value chain by organizing nonlinear feedback, dynamic linkages, uncertainties, and emergence as key attributes that guide the node level interactions. 

Fourth, the three segments – structure, conduct and performance – of the value chain remain integral to its core and an active part of the interactive process involving the SES attributes and the five nodes

Abstract

Small-scale fisheries (SSF) support over 90% of the 120 million people engaged in fisheries globally. Dried fish is an important sub-sector of SSF, which is characterized by declining social, economic, political conditions of people involved in its production, and the ecosystems they depend on. Dried fish accounts for 12% of the total fish consumption globally but can increase up to 36% in low-income countries. About half of the people involved in dried fish production and marketing are women. The approach taken to analyse dried fish sector has so far followed a narrow subset of commodity chain approaches with a focus on financial value, transmitted in a linear ‘vertical’ fashion across value chain actors. Existing value chain approach fails to factor the non-capital relationships of dried fish that are contingent upon specific histories, ecologies, peoples, places, and the practices. The narrow neoclassical economic perspective of dried fish value chain (DFVC) also impedes appropriate responses to their unique attributes pertaining to social, ecological, institutional interactions across multiple scales. Failure to consider social-ecological system (SES) attributes, its connections and relationships with dried fish value chain not only undermine social wellbeing of upstream actors but also perpetuates social-environmental inequity and injustice. The paper offers a novel SES-oriented DFVC perspective that focuses on social wellbeing of fishers and dried fish workers. The reconceptualisation of structure, conduct and performance of DFVC is done by conducting an interdisciplinary analysis of peer-reviewed literature from SES, value chain and social wellbeing.

Citation

Pradhan, Sisir Kanta, Prateep Kumar Nayak, and Derek Armitage. 2022. “A Social-Ecological Systems Perspective on Dried Fish Value Chains.” Current Research in Environmental Sustainability 4 (January): 100128. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crsust.2022.100128.

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Research

Gender relations in dried fish value chains

Galappaththi et al. explore gender relations in dried fish value chains, proposing an analytic framework that links gender, wellbeing creation, and intersecting structural oppressions within dried fish value chains, with an overarching focus on relationality.

Their work draws on three case studies: (1) The seasonal fish drying workforce at Nazirartek, Bangladesh, which includes local inhabitants, migratory workers from elsewhere in Bangladesh, and Rohingya refugees from neighbouring Myanmar; (2) local Tanzanian women and women from the Democratic Republic of the Congo who trade in dried Nile perch in Mwanza, Tanzania; and (3) Tamil fishing communities on Mannar Island, Sri Lanka, who engage in fish processing and selling, and whose traditional livelihoods have been impacted by civil war.

The authors suggest that by focusing our attention on gender relations in such contexts — the “relational construction of gendered roles, responsibilities and restrictions, and how they often uniquely disadvantage women” — we might better critique the power structures embedded in value chains, providing a better understanding of marginalization, agency, social wellbeing, and the complexities of women’s lived experience.

Selected constraints faced by women in dried fish value chains. Galappaththi et al. write: “Despite the diverse benefits mediated through social and cultural relations, women face significant constraints within dried fish value chains that perpetuate gender inequities and undermine their wellbeing. Existing dried fish scholarship, however, does not provide a complete account of these constraints. We supplement existing (limited) dried fish research with insights drawn from small-scale fisheries research to explore the key constraints faced by women”.

Reference

Galappaththi, Madu, Andrea M. Collins, Derek Armitage, and Prateep Kumar Nayak. 2021. “Linking Social Wellbeing and Intersectionality to Understand Gender Relations in Dried Fish Value Chains.” Maritime Studies. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40152-021-00232-3.

The purpose of this perspective paper is to advance a comprehensive framework to integrate gender within the study of dried fish value chains. We do so by linking three complementary areas of scholarship: social wellbeing, intersectionality, and value chains. Social wellbeing literature emphasizes the range of benefits generated through dried fish value chains (e.g., social ties, cultural values, and material goods). An intersectional perspective, however, brings attention to the relational structures (e.g., caste, ethnicity) that intersect with gender to uniquely position women and men within value chains in relation to the benefits they can generate. In developing this framework, a key point of departure from existing literature is the notion of relationality (i.e., the creation of experiences in relation to one another within a given context). The value chain analysis further reveals how such unique positions determine the wellbeing outcomes women can generate through their participation in value chains. We demonstrate the contribution of this novel framework by applying it within dried fish case examples from Bangladesh, Tanzania, and Sri Lanka. In doing so, we systematically unpack how gender intersects with other structures of oppression and perpetuate gender inequity. Our framework thus results in a ‘thick description’ of gender relations operating in dried fish value chains. The insights that emerge can inform relevant policies, decision-making processes, and programs to ensure the creation of equitable wellbeing outcomes by those participating in dried fish value chains.

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Research

Living on the edge

In India, dried fish have been traditionally important to small-scale fishing economies, contributed to food and nutritional security of large segments of population (especially the poor), and supported a wide range of livelihoods. Since the beginning of the 1990s, as Indian fisheries sector underwent a radical transformation, the dried fish processing sector was subject to significant upheavals. While the early stages of modernisation of Indian fisheries had enhanced the women’s access to fish, its latter stages were characterised by the dried fish value chains having to cope with reduced availability and access to fish; competition from other, more lucrative, value chains and markets; and overall decline in the drying operations. Women, who constituted the majority of actors in dried fish production and trade, faced increasing challenges to their livelihoods that required, on the one hand, having to make a number of adaptations to their fish processing and trade practices and, on the other, attempting to reduce their dependence on fish drying and switch to other occupations.

Many of these transformative changes remained poorly understood and documented, especially from a development policy perspective. District Fishermen Youth Welfare Association (DFYWA), an NGO working with the small-scale fishers on the east coast of India, undertook a study to obtain better understanding of the changing livelihood context of women dried fish processors, and its consequences on their quality of life, in the northern coastal districts of Andhra Pradesh. A major theme underlying the study has been to gain an historical perspective, based on the perspective of women involved in the dried fish trade, on the long-term viability of dried fish as a source of livelihoods, and in terms of their contribution to food security and small-scale fishing economies.

The focus of the study was firmly on women: to understand how a set of women, following a traditionally important way of life, coped with the impacts of major changes happening within and beyond their area of work, and frequently beyond their control or understanding. The adaptability, flexibility, and resilience shown by the women, it was expected, would not only form the basis of any policy/development actions to improve their conditions, but also have relevance to a wider range of people confronting similar trends and challenges in their own livelihoods in other activities/sectors.

Following a categorisation of the women fish processors (who were a diverse and disparate lot) according to their socio-economic conditions, the study attempted to understand the current status of dried fish production and the key trends affecting the activities and actors from a livelihoods perspective. It aimed to assess the current and long-term impacts of new sources of demand, such as industrial fishmeal, on the dried fish production and trade. It attempted to understand the strategies adopted by women (in terms of mitigation, adaptation, and diversification) to cope with the challenges and to assess the effectiveness and sustainability of such responses. Based on the magnitude of the challenges and women’s responses to them, the study tried to identify broad areas of action to inform and initiate future policy and support processes for more robust and realistic support systems to be put in place.

The study received partial support from the research project, ‘Dried Fish Matters: Mapping the social economy of dried fish in South and Southeast Asia for enhanced wellbeing and nutrition’, being implemented by the University of Manitoba, Canada, with support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).

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Reference

Salagrama, Venkatesh, and Arjili Dasu. 2021. “Living on the Edge: Perspectives of the Small-Scale Women Fish Processors of Northern Coastal Andhra Pradesh, India.” DFM Reports. India: District Fishermen Youth Welfare Association. [DFM-DFYWA_RPT_Living-on-the-edge_2021-08-25_FINAL.pdf]

The District Fishermen Youth Welfare Association (DFYWA) is a community-based non-governmental organisation working with the small-scale fishers and fishworkers of northern Andhra Pradesh since 1992, implementing activities focused on developing sustainable fisheries-based livelihoods for men and women. This working paper is the first in the proposed series, focusing upon the fisherwomen involved in dried fish trade covering the four northern coastal districts of Andhra Pradesh. The working paper also takes a sideways glance at the potential impacts of the industrial fishmeal production on the small-scale processed fish production in the target communities. It is the intention of DFYWA to treat the working paper as a live document, to allow updating it at regular intervals, add more quantitative data as it is collected, and also use this as a baseline to understand and interpret future development directions in the subsector, both from within the communities and outside of them. The study, based mostly on primary data collection, is undertaken by several members and staff of DFYWA.

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News Research

Researching communications in an international project

This study, “Assessing perceptions of effectiveness of three levels of communication in an international project on the social economy of dried fish in Asia”, was conducted as part of my Master Thesis from September 2020 to August 2021, and due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this thesis was done remotely.

I used a mixed method approach to examine various factors influencing communication effectiveness in an international project directed by anthropologists. The project is called “Dried Fish Matters” (DFM) and focuses on the importance of the social economy of dried fish and the social wellbeing of marginalized people in South and South-East Asia. My study can serve as a model to encourage other international research projects to include reflexivity and self-analysis in their work and communication practices.

Communication can take multiple forms and is essential in our personal and professional lives. Communication has been studied in various contexts, including architecture projects; distance education; commercial enterprises; fishery organizations, industries, consumers, marketing companies and decision makers; and medical environments. However, communication within international research teams has been understudied.

I used three different methods to investigate DFM’s internal and external communications: a general survey, in-depth interviews and participant observation. Internal communications were divided into internal communication within research teams and internal communication within the global project. Both types of internal communications were found to be effective from participants’ perspectives: 84% of the participants answered positively to the general questions. Concerning the external communication addressed to external users, results were much more mixed, with only 47% of the participants answering positively about its effectiveness. Even though the mixed method approach can be an effective methodology for engaging with communication effectiveness, close attention should be given to the definitions of communication and communication effectiveness.

DFM Student Working Group Meeting (2020), part of the participant observation methodology.

This study highlights some of the influencing factors of communication, including hierarchy, interdisciplinary collaboration, personality traits, social relationships among colleagues, and DFM’s coordination. There is not a single definition of effective communication or a model for how it can be achieved in every case, so it is impossible to make generalizations based on this work. However, my study demonstrates the importance of transparency, open-mindedness and frequent communications in international research projects, which can form the basis of effective communication. Thereby, I demonstrate the importance of communication in research projects, the lack of literature associated with it, and the influencing factors that could be seen as a requirement to have effective communication.

Key recommendations

Here are some key recommendations based on the results of this study and from the participants’ point of view:

  • Having a Zoom free Friday, or Zoom-free after 9 pm
  • Having a summary in one place to keep track of everything related to the project, for example in the DFM’s website for all the participants, or in the wiki-page
  • Sending an analysis every couple of weeks or month in order to keep collaborators from the project aware of the research
  • Having one person or a group of people dedicated to communication full-time
  • Having someone from DFM central monitoring and assisting the country teams; it could even improve the communication between regional teams and DFM central

Here are my key recommendations based on the results of this study:

  • Online meetings should include a break of 5 or 10 minutes during the middle of a meeting. Moreover, it would be helpful to alternate the meeting time: one time during the morning in Canada, one time during the evening in Canada, etc
  • Giving more feedback to everyone working within the project
  • Increase social media presence by creating an account on Instagram and/or other online platforms to expand communication toward the general public
  • Create a WhatsApp group within research teams and even within the global project

Reference

Pigeault, Alexia. 2021. “Assessing Perceptions of Effectiveness of Three Levels of Communication in an International Project on the Social Economy of Dried Fish in Asia.” Master’s thesis, Online: Gent University and University of Manitoba. [Thesis report Alexia Pigeault.pdf]

Effective communication in research projects can have direct positive impacts on knowledge co-production and the researchers’ wellbeing. Examining the factors influencing communication requires in-depth observation and understanding of the researchers’ opinions and actions. This study consisted of “researching the researchers”; as part of my thesis research, I observed the interactions of members of an international research project on dried fish in South and South East Asia led by Canadian Anthropologists. The focus was on internal and external communications and revealed that open-mindedness, frequent communication, and transparency are three determinants of effective communication. Moreover, the results show a global agreement on the effectiveness of internal communications, while the results for external communication are more mixed. Studying our own communications by engaging in introspection is something that should be required to produce better outcomes and enhance collaboration in international projects.