Fishing peanuts!

Earlier this week, Business Recorder reported that Pakistan managed to increase its fish production only by 60,000 tons in nearly two decades. For a country that has about 1000 kilometres of coastline, and forever struggling with exports, this is extremely poor performance.

Pakistan’s exports of fish and crustaceans, mollusks and other aquatic invertebrates was not even half a million dollars in 2017, according to ITC Trade Map. By comparison, India exported more than $6 billion of seafood in 2017 - clearly more than Pakistan even when the data is read relative to population or the length of coastline.

Consider also that “almost 60 percent of Pakistan’s marine capture production is considered “trash fish” and is used for fishmeal, which has the lowest value of any processed fish product,” according to a recent World Bank study titled Revitalizing Pakistan’s Fisheries.

The report adds that Pakistan’s domestic market for fish and fishery products is small, relative to the size of the population. Average per capita fish consumption is about 2 kg per year, only a tenth of the global average of 20 kg per capita in 2014, “and the lowest of any ocean-facing nation”. India’s per capita fish consumption isn’t great either; two years ago, it was reported at 6 kg though it was eyeing a target of 15-kg over the next 7-8 years. Despite this low consumption, she exports $6 billion of seafood.

Seafood is not an industry that requires huge investments ala building a dam for which everyone is going potty about these days. Nor does it require complex or unpopular reforms as perhaps in energy or taxation.

What it requires instead, is improved regulations and coordination: be it to curb over fishing, to ensure health and other quality standards, or create incentives for micro-lending to fishermen and fish farmers so they can purchase equipment or for the setting up of value chain. It’s a pretty cut and dry business; even its raw material sourcing and/or input costs isn’t as expensive and difficult as say for instance fertilizer or cement production.

Yet with all the talent that Pakistan has gathered in the last seventy odd years, she is still fishing peanuts. If Pakistan doesn’t want to fish for exports, it should at least do it for domestic market. The received medical wisdom is that white meat is healthier than red meat consumption because it has less cholesterol and saturated fats. But nay, who can dare to say the word fish when the country lives under the tyranny of chicken, and red meat. Why hasn’t Pakistan focused on sea food industry? That requires a separate discussion!