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THE HUMAN NEED FOR ANIMAL PROTEIN

There are about 3 billion people on earth presently. Each of them reuqires about 70 grams of protein per day to remain in a healthy nutritional condition (Schaefer, 1963). This works out to a human need of about 76 million tons of protein per year for the present human population. Schmitt (manuscript) gives reasons indicating the possibility that the human population will level out at about 30 billion. Such a population would require about 760 million tons of protein per year to fill its nutritional requirements.

Of course most protein now entering the human diet is not animal protein and perhaps it never will be. At present the protein at the point of consumption is approximately 67 percent of plant origin, 24 percent of meat and milk origin, 4 percent of poultry and egg origin, and 5 percent of fish origin (Schaefer, 1963). Theoretically it would perhaps be possible for man to subsist healthily simply on plant proteins, for all of the essential amino acids are present in the plant protein (King, 1965).

As a practical matter this is not the case because the main source of man's food energy is the cereal grains, and other seeds (wheat, corn, rice, barley, millet, beans, peanuts, soybeans, etc.) and these are short of lysine and the sulfur containing amino acids that man needs in his diet to stay in energetic health. Thus, as a practical matter, the human diet requires a considerable amount of animal protein to protect health and energy. Certainly the percentage thus required will change as civilization, society, and habits change. Perhaps an animal protein component of the protein requirement of a diet for 30 billion people of 40 percent would not be ridiculous. This would require about 300 million tons of animal protein per year.

FISH AND THE HUMAN ANIMAL PROTEIN NEEDS

Fish range in protein content from, about 15 percent to 24 percent (Olcott and Schaefer, 1963) and perhaps an average of 20 percent for rough calculation is not too far out of the way. Fish protein contains all of the amino acids required by the human body in proportions well balanced to maintain health and energy. As we have seen above the ocean is producing about 2 billion tons of fish and squid in the second carnivore stage at the present time in total weight. This means a production of animal protein at this trophic level of about 400 million tons per year.

When one considers the conservative nature of all of these estimates, and the fact that the average fish catch in the world is shifting rapidly toward the first carnivore tropic level, one can say with some assurance that a world ocean is producing more fish and animal protein than a human population of 3 billion people can possibly use, and appears to be capable of producing somewhat more animal protein than a population of 30 billion people would need. The fact that most of it now dies a natural death and returns its components to the sea is beside the present point.

THE PRESENT DIETARY SITUATION OF THE WORLD

Let us turn, then, from these theoretical considerations, which are so rosy, to a look at the world as it is working under a population pressure of about 3 billion people, and under the social and economic conditions that actually exist. There is nothing rosy about it at all.

It is generally considered that 30 grams per day of animal protein in the human diet is sufficient for maintaining the human body in vigorous health; 15 to 30 grams per day is considered to be on the borderline of a healthy situation; and less than 15 grams per day is considered to be in the danger zone (Olcott and Schaefer, 1963).

The actual situation in the world today is that 19.5 percent of the human population has an average of more than 30 grams of animal protein in its daily diet; 19.8 percent have between 15 and 30 grams per day; and a whopping 60.7 percent majority has less than the danger limit of 15 grams per day (Meseck, 1962). The per capita daily consumption of animal protein in some selected countries are: United States 66 grams; Japan 15 grams; Egypt 13 grams; Pakistan 8 grams; and India 6 grams (Meseck, 1962).

These are some of the figures behind the statements by the nutritionists of WHO, FAO, and UNICEF (Sen, 1963) that 1.5 billion people are presently living under conditions of protein malnutrition damaging to health and energy

and that 0.5 billion people are suffering from protein malnutrition at the level characterized as sickness. The protein malnutrition diseases of kwashiorkor and marasmus are well known as the largest single killers of preschool age children on a worldwide basis.

It is noted that these serious conditions of protein malnutrition are concentrated in the developing world, the tropics and the subtropics, for the most part. This is the area where social unrest is most rampant on a worldwide basis as any daily newspaper will indicate. This is the area characterized by northerners as inhabited by lethargic, indolent people who seem unable to care for themselves adequately as their populations increase, and who do not know enough to stop increasing. On the other hand, these people say they have been preyed upon by the northerners so long, and so robbed of their sustenance, that they have difficulty in recovering the progressing now that the northerners have gone, or been sent, home.

Perhaps a good share of this acrimonious dialog arises from the typical protein deficiencies of the human diet in the developing world. There are large populations of humans where the normal lot of an infant is to suffer for a time from protein deficiency disease. Clinical work adequately shows that this not only results in physical and mental retardation (NAS/NRC, 1961). Thus perhaps a good deal of the root cause of social unrest, slowness in economic development, difficulties in governance, and other socially undesirable traits of the developing world arises from protein malnutrition, and is capable of cure in one generation. A corollary to such an hypothesis would be that correction of the protein malnutrition cause would be a necessary precondition to correction of the social and economic problems of the developing world.

In any event the World Health Organization, the food-for-peace program, UNICEF, FAO, and the other United Nations agencies and bilaterial aid programs concerned with these problems are now giving the most serious attention to improving the protein nutrition of the developing world as rapidly as is possible.

There are many reasons why this problem developed and why it is difficult to resolve. Broad areas of middle Africa have endemic livestock diseases which prevent much animal protein being raised on the land. Great areas of heavily populated southeast Asia require the arable land needed for livestock raising for the production of cereal crops. Religious scruples prevent many people from eating any meat, others prevent large populations from eating any pork, and some primitive people even eschew chickens on religious grounds, at least at certain periods.

This present world problem was a long time arising from complex sources, but it cannot be so long in being resolved because the temper of the times and the pressure of added population exciting further serious unrest will not permit it.

THE PRESENT FISHERIES

We have noted above that the ocean produces more animal protein in sizes that can be practically used by man in greater volume than man can use, and that large sectors of the human population are suffering from protein malnutrition on a socially unacceptable scale. Let us see what the fisheries are doing in reaction to this.

In 1850 the world catch of fish and shellfish (excluding whales) was about 1.5 to 2 million tons. By 1900 it had increased to about 4 million tons; in 1930 to 10 million tons. in 1950 to 20.2 million tons; in 1960 to 38.2 million tons (Moiseev, 1964); and in 1964 production is estimated to be about 50 million tons. In addition to this the whale production in 1961, at least, was about 2.5 million tons (Moiseev, 1964). Most of this expansion in the world fisheries has come from the ocean. During the first 5 years of the decade ending with 1962 the growth rate of the marine fisheries was 4.5 percent per year. During the last half of that decade it was 8 percent per year (Olcott and Schaefer 1963). It seems presently to be accelerating.

The total world catch of fish, whales, shellfish, other aquatic animals and acquatic plants was 47.2 million tons in 1962. Of this less than 10 percent (4.67 million tons) came from fresh waters (Moiseev, 1964). Even this last figure is suspected of being somewhat too high because a large component of it is from official statistics provided by Communist China when it was apostrophizing the "Great Leap Forward," which fell flat on its face. Despite the considerable and valuable product of fresh water pond culture, especially in connection with rice

paddy cultivation in Asia, there is evidence that fresh-water fish production on a worldwide basis is not doing much better than holding its own, nor it is expected to do much better than this in the future. The reason is that man as a whole is destroying the productive capacity of the fresh waters through overfishing, construction of dams and diversions, use of pesticides and otherwise tampering with the environment, just about as fast as he is building ponds with which to raise more fish. The expansion in production of aquatic food must be expected only from the ocean on a substantial scale.

It is instructive to look at the composition of the world catch of aquatic food. In 1962 85.9 percent of this was fish (40.4 million tons); 7.6 percent (3.5 million tons) was shellfish; 5.1 percent (2.4 million tons) was whale; 1.4 percent (0.7 million tons) was other aquatic animals. In the period 1938 to 1962 the fish component of this production had increased from 18.3 to 40.4 million tons (by 221 percent); the crustacean component had increased from 1.6 to 3.5 million tons (219 percent); the whale component had shrunk from 2.9 to 2.4 million tons; the aquatic plant component had increased from 0.5 to 0.7 million tons; and the other aquatic animal component had increased from 0.1 to 0.2 million tons (Moiseev, 1964). Obviously the important aquatic crop is fish and shellfish (93.4 of the total) and it is upon these that dependence must be placed for food from the waters.

Since most food from the waters is fish (85.9 percent in 1962) and most of this is from the ocean (88.4 percent in 1962) it is instructive to look at the composition of the world catch of marine fish. In 1962 the herring and anchovy (clupeoid) component of the catch was 41.1 percent (14.6 million tons); the cod, haddock, and hake (gadoid) component was 15.5 percent (5.51 million tons); the horse mackerel, sea perch, etc. (Percomorph) component was 12.0 percent (4.27 million tons); the tunas and mackerels (scombroid) component was 6.7 percent (2.38 million tons); the flat fish component was 3.4 percent (1.2 million tons); the salmonoid (salmon and smelt) component was 1.5 percent of the catch (0.55 million tons); the sharks and ray (elasmo branch) component of the catch was 1 percent (0.37 million tons); and all the other kinds of fish was 18.5 percent of the catch or 6.77 tons.

It is reasonable to expect that the 18.8 percent of the catch that was unallocatable by species groups in the above tabulation was actually distributed among these groups in about the same proportion as the other 81.2 percent of the catch. If that were so then in 1962 51 percent of the world ocean fish catch was clupeoid fish; 24 percent was composed of gadoid and perciform fishes; and only 15 percent was composed of scombroids, pleuronectids, salmonoids, and elasmobranchs.

This reinforces the calculations of the food production capabilities of the ocean as set out above by indicating that the average world fish catch is composed of fishes not much above the first stage carnivore level.

It is obvious from this tabulation that the important volume producers of animal protein food from the sea are not the fancy fish such as salmon, tuna, sole, bonito, corvina, and halibut (or even the staple codfish), but instead are the lowly herrings, sardines, and anchovies. As a matter of fact the increase in production of herring-like fishes between 1938 and 1962 (from 5.37 million tons in 1938 to 14.66 million), combined total catch (9.65 million tons) of all codlike, tuna-like, salmon-like, and flat fishes in 1962 (Moiseev, 1964). Furthermore the anchovy catch of Peru and Chile alone has increased by something between 2 and 3 million tons from 1962 to 1964.

A great deal is heard publicly of salmon, trouts, etc., and particularly of the rosy future ahead for the selective breeding of this sort of fish in order to expand food production from them. As a matter of fact the total world catch of all salmonoid fishes declined from 5.3 percent of the world fish catch in 1938 to 1.5 percent in 1962 and in actual volume from 0.85 million tons in 1938 to 0.55 million tons in 1962. It never provided a substantial part of ocean food production, and never will. Total salmon and trout resources of the world are too small to be of much significance from this viewpoint.

Most of the publicity respecting ocean fisheries arises from the North Atlantic, where commercial fisheries as we know them today had their origin and where the nations surrounding it have long been reputed as principal fishing nations of the world (Norway, Portugal, Iceland, England, Spain, etc.). As a matter of fact the entire fish catch of all countries in the whole of the North Atlantic was only 7.1 million tons in 1938 and increased to only 12.06 million tons in 1962 (Moiseev, 1964) and a major contributor to this increase was a country considered as a landlocked state in 1938--Russia.

In 1938 most scientists and fishery experts, whose knowledge derived principally from these northern seas, considered tropical seas to be essentially barren. A good many still do. In the intervening years the catch of a single species of fish, the anchovy (Engraulis ringens) in the tropical waters of only two countries (Chile and Peru) has increased from about 50,000 tons in 1954 (substantially nothing in 1938) to about 10 million tons in 1964, which will compare favorably with the total catch all countries will make of all kinds of fish in the entire North Atlantic in 1964 and be considerably more than all the European countries will take from the whole Atlantic this year.

From these statistics emerges a view of world fisheries other than is normally considered, composed of the following parts:

(1) The most important products from the aquatic realm by value and volume are the living resources (about 50 million tons per year at the present). (2) The dominant part of this production is fish (86 percent).

(3) The dominant part of the fish catch is from the ocean (88.4 percent). (4) The major component of the fish catch from the ocean, and the most rapidly growing, is that provided by the herring-like fish (at least 41.1 percent of the total in 1962, and perhaps somewhat more than 50 percent in 1964, having more than doubled since 1955).

(5) The rapidly growing fisheries are not in the northern seas, nor in southern seas, but in tropical seas (the tropical fisheries of Peru and Chile having come from less than one-half percent of world marine fish production in 1954 to nearly 20 percent in 1962 and probably somewhat over 20 percent in 1964).

(6) The production of animal protein from the ocean is increasing at a much more rapid rate than is the human population of the world (a growth rate of about 8 percent in the marine fisheries from 1957 to 1962 versus a growth rate in the human population in the neighborhood of 21⁄2 percent) (NAS/NRC, 1963). Thus we note:

(a) One of the prime social and economic needs of the human population of the world to be animal protein in the diet;

(b) The ocean itself is producing more animal protein than 10 times the present human population could use, although most of it now dies a natural death and returns to the web of life in the ocean unused by man; and

(c) The ocean fisheries of the world are responding to this need of humanity by a much more rapid rate of growth than the human population is undergoing.

THE DISTRIBUTION OF ANIMAL PROTEIN FROM THE SEA

One might say upon hearing these things that the prime dietary crisis of mankind (shortage of animal protein), will shortly correct itself and all will soon be right with the world so far as food is concerned. While this could be true nothing on the present world scene indicates that it will happen quickly.

A very large amount of fish that is caught is discarded and not landed. This is true of all trawl fisheries whether for mollusks, crustacea, or fish, where the "trash" fish are ordinarily discarded at sea.

The actual fact is that most of the increased production of food from the sea that is landed is being consumed by the industrialized countries (where there is already adequate volume and great variety of animal protein available in most places at most times) and not by the developing countries (where the need for animal protein is great and urgent). There are a great many complicated reasons for this which are difficult to disentangle, and seemingly impossible to correct quickly, but the biggest one is purchasing power.

The people of the industrialized countries have adequate disposal income with which to buy any and all foods they want from anywhere. In the United States, for example, the total part of the consumer's budget spent on all foods is presently a little less than 20 percent, the first time in history that this has happened to a numerous people. As the disposable income of the inhabitants of the industrialized countries increases they tend to eat more protein and less carbohydrates. The average daily intake of 66 grams of animal protein per capita in the United States as contrasted with 6 in India is a case in point. The situation is much the same, however, in industrialized Europe and is trending in the same direction in Japan.

Furthermore, the strong trend in the use of fish in the industrialized countries is not directly in the form of fish as it comes from the sea but as fishmeal used in the more efficient production of animal protein from poultry, swine, and cattle. The greater portion of the rapidly increasing fish production in Peru,

for instance, is consumed not as fish in Peru but as chicken in North America, Europe, and Japan (and increasingly in the rest of the world too as scientific chicken raising proliferates geographically into the developing world), and increasingly as pork and beef as well.

Very little needed human food value is lost in this process. The thing that is really short in suply in the world is not calarie food or protein food, but the lysine and sulfur containing amino acids found in good proportions in fish and the flesh of other animals but poorly in seed crops of plants. (Sunflower seed is high in sulfur containing amino acids but is not used as a protein supplement on a large scale.) Chickens are able to convert these amino acids from 5-percent level of fishmeal in diet almost at a 1 to 1 ratio into chicken flesh. The small percentage of fishmeal in the chicken diet produces a sufficient increase in the chicken's rate of growth and its efficiency in converting grains to animal protein to more than pay for the extra cost. The result is an even greater supply of cheap, readily acceptable animal protein food for humans. It is chickens, rather than humans directly, that are stimulating the important part of the increase in the world fish production.

While this is the actual situation in the world today, it is not quite so black as it is painted here, probably it is inevitable, and quite possibly it is all working out for the best about as quickly as anyone could otherwise devise.

While most of the fish catch of Peru (for instance) goes to the industrialized countries as fishmeal to be fed to chickens, and there is great dietary need for animal protein in Peru, the per capita fish consumption in that country is increasing rapidly and perhaps more swiftly than could be arranged in any other way. The rapid growth of the fisheries has stimulated the coastal economy in Peru enormously. This has raised the purchasing power of the local inhabitant sharply so that he can afford more protein in his diet. Also it has drawn large numbers of ill-nourished people in the Andes down to the coast where income and fish are available. The great volume fisheries in turn have made the fish price in coastal Peru cheaper than could have ever been done through small fisheries developed solely for local consumption. At the present time the fishing industry of Peru and the Peruvian Government are launching a massive joint internal campaign to stimulate the use of fish in Peru among those sectors of the population most in need of added animal protein in their diets. Such a campaign would not be possible if there were not a large fishing industry supported by exports.

Again, in West Africa, a similar thing seems to be going on, in a less organized but still substantial manner. This is the type locality of the protein deficiency disease, kwashiorkor, and perhaps its intensity in the heavily populated jungle in from the West African Coast is greater than elsewhere in the world. The very rich fish resources are presently being developed most intensively by foreign fishermen (Russian, Japanese, Spanish, French, Italian, etc.) for foreign markets. But the foreigners want selected fish (tunas, bream, snappers, shrimp, etc., that are sufficiently high priced in the world market to warrant the cost of freezing and shipping them overseas. The catch of fish less desired in the industrialized countries (sardine, herring, mackerel, shark, etc.) is disposed of locally. By this means the amount of fish available for local consumption in West Africa is increasing sharply (Chapman, 1964). At the same time local fishermen are learning and adapting more modern fishing methods for the supplying of fish locally. This process is going on particularly rapidly in Ghana, Senegal, and the Ivory Coast.

This same thing is also beginning to occur on a smaller scale in northeast Africa where the beginning Russian fishery in the Gulf of Aden is already supplying badly needed fish to Egypt and the Sudan. It is quite probable that this same process will be repeated elsewhere as the great unused fish resources of tropical seas are developed one by one.

Another major benefit for the developing countries is arising from the sharp developments that have been taking place in the improved efficiency of chicken production in the industrialized countries. These scientifically sophisticated methods of providing live animal protein cheaply near the point of consumption from dry foods which can be obtained, transported, and stored cheaply are being transferred lock, stock, and barrel to tropical countries, and where this has been done a revolution in the human diet is proceeding.

Also as this is done, these countries are increasingly importing fishmeal from Peru, Chile, or south Africa and considering ways and means of building up their own local herring-like fisheries so that they can have their own local

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