Publications by authors named "Jessica A Gephart"

The United States' current Seafood Import Monitoring Program (SIMP) and a potential extension are undergoing review, yet quantitative evaluation of the current program is lacking. The SIMP is a traceability program aimed at reducing imports of seafood products that are of illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) origin or associated with seafood fraud. We conducted a quantitative examination of the SIMP's current scope and design by synthesizing publicly available trade data along with measures of IUU fishing and seafood mislabeling.

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  • * A comprehensive database analyzed trade from 1996 to 2020, revealing a 40% increase in the share of aquatic food production that is exported, while global consumption rose by 19.4% despite a decline in marine capture consumption.
  • * The findings help identify sustainable dietary options within aquatic foods and shed light on the complex role of trade in evolving aquatic food systems, especially as some regions depend more on imported sources.
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Reducing the environmental pressures stemming from food production is central to meeting global sustainability targets. Shifting diets represents one lever for improving food system sustainability, and identifying sustainable diet opportunities requires computational models to represent complex systems and allow users to evaluate counterfactual scenarios. Despite an increase in the number of food system sustainability models, there remains a lack of transparency of data inputs and mathematical formulas to facilitate replication by researchers and application by diverse stakeholders.

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Ensuring healthy and sustainable food systems in increasing social, economic, and ecological change is a key global priority to protect human and environmental health. Seafood is an essential component of these food systems and a critical source of nutrients, especially in coastal communities. However, despite rapid transformations in aquatic food systems, and our urgent need to understand them, there is a dearth of data connecting harvested food production to actualized food consumption.

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  • The study explores the impact of global seafood trade networks on the sustainability of fisheries, finding that trade connectivity plays a crucial role.
  • An analysis of over 400,000 trade flows and 876 fish species indicates that fragmented trade networks with strong intra-group ties lead to higher biomass levels.
  • The research suggests that improved collaboration between fisheries authorities and trade organizations is essential for fostering sustainable fishing practices.
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  • Injustices in food systems lead to a situation where a small number of individuals accumulate great wealth while around one in ten people experience hunger across 194 countries.
  • Research using Bayesian models highlights that economic and political barriers limit both wealth and food production, with a lack of education and accountability contributing to these disparities.
  • The analysis of policy documents shows a consistent neglect of political and gender inequalities, although effective policies promoting equitable food systems emphasize human rights, inclusive decision-making, and challenge systemic injustices.
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  • * A study called the Blue Food Assessment looked at how blue foods affect nutrition, the environment, economy, and fairness, creating four goals to help countries use blue foods in their food systems.
  • * The goals aim to improve nutrition, offer healthier options than land meats, reduce environmental harm from diets, and support communities facing climate change, paying attention to what's best for different countries and cultures.
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  • Food production of fed animals, like broiler chickens and salmon, significantly contributes to global environmental degradation, necessitating effective food policies for sustainability.* -
  • The study highlights that farming broiler chickens impacts nine times more land area than salmon, though chickens produce 55 times the output, with a large concentration of environmental pressures in specific locations.* -
  • Shared feed ingredients are a major contributor to environmental pressures in both sectors, indicating a crucial area for improvement in reducing ecological footprints and promoting sustainability through integrated food policies.*
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The Kiribati 2019 Integrated Household Income and Expenditure Survey (Integrated HIES) embeds novel ecological and human health research into an ongoing social and economic survey infrastructure implemented by the Pacific Community in partnership with national governments. This study seeks to describe the health status of a large, nationally representative sample of a geographically and socially diverse I-Kiribati population through multiple clinical measurements and detailed socio-economic surveys, while also conducting supporting food systems research on ecological, social, and institutional drivers of change. The specific hypotheses within this research relate to access to seafood and the potential nutritional and health benefits of these foods.

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Background: The 2020 US Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend that the US population consume more seafood. Most analyses of seafood consumption ignore heterogeneity in consumption patterns by species, nutritional content, production methods, and price, which have implications for applying recommendations.

Objectives: We assessed seafood intake among adults by socioeconomic and demographic groups, as well as the cost of seafood at retail to identify affordable and nutritious options.

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Social-ecological networks (SENs) represent the complex relationships between ecological and social systems and are a useful tool for analyzing and managing ecosystem services. However, mainstreaming the application of SENs in ecosystem service research has been hindered by a lack of clarity about how to match research questions to ecosystem service conceptualizations in SEN (i.e.

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Despite contributing to healthy diets for billions of people, aquatic foods are often undervalued as a nutritional solution because their diversity is often reduced to the protein and energy value of a single food type ('seafood' or 'fish'). Here we create a cohesive model that unites terrestrial foods with nearly 3,000 taxa of aquatic foods to understand the future impact of aquatic foods on human nutrition. We project two plausible futures to 2030: a baseline scenario with moderate growth in aquatic animal-source food (AASF) production, and a high-production scenario with a 15-million-tonne increased supply of AASFs over the business-as-usual scenario in 2030, driven largely by investment and innovation in aquaculture production.

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Fish and other aquatic foods (blue foods) present an opportunity for more sustainable diets. Yet comprehensive comparison has been limited due to sparse inclusion of blue foods in environmental impact studies relative to the vast diversity of production. Here we provide standardized estimates of greenhouse gas, nitrogen, phosphorus, freshwater and land stressors for species groups covering nearly three quarters of global production.

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Numerous studies have focused on the need to expand production of 'blue foods', defined as aquatic foods captured or cultivated in marine and freshwater systems, to meet rising population- and income-driven demand. Here we analyze the roles of economic, demographic, and geographic factors and preferences in shaping blue food demand, using secondary data from FAO and The World Bank, parameters from published models, and case studies at national to sub-national scales. Our results show a weak cross-sectional relationship between per capita income and consumption globally when using an aggregate fish metric.

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  • * The study analyzed disruptions in the seafood supply chain from January to May 2020, using a resilience framework to assess the varying impacts on different market segments and actors.
  • * Key findings suggest that some groups have demonstrated resilience, while others are vulnerable, leading to recommendations for adaptive strategies and research to enhance future resilience in the seafood sector.
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Aquatic foods from marine and freshwater systems are critical to the nutrition, health, livelihoods, economies and cultures of billions of people worldwide, but climate-related hazards may compromise their ability to provide these benefits. Here, we estimate national-level aquatic food system climate risk using an integrative food systems approach that connects climate hazards impacting marine and freshwater capture fisheries and aquaculture to their contributions to sustainable food system outcomes. We show that without mitigation, climate hazards pose high risks to nutritional, social, economic and environmental outcomes worldwide-especially for wild-capture fisheries in Africa, South and Southeast Asia, and Small Island Developing States.

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Environmental variability and shock events can be propagated or attenuated along food supply chains by various economic, political and infrastructural factors. Understanding these processes is central to reducing risks associated with periodic food shortages, price spikes and reductions in food quality. Here we perform a scoping review of the literature to examine entry points for environmental variability along the food supply chain, the evidence of propagation or attenuation of this variability, and the food items and types of shock that have been studied.

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The US seafood sector is susceptible to shocks, both because of the seasonal nature of many of its domestic fisheries and its global position as a top importer and exporter of seafood. However, many data sets that could inform science and policy during an emerging event do not exist or are only released months or years later. Here, we synthesize multiple data sources from across the seafood supply chain, including unconventional real-time data sets, to show the relative initial responses and indicators of recovery during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Over the past decade, seafood mislabeling has been increasingly documented, raising public concern over the identity, safety, and sustainability of seafood. Negative outcomes from seafood mislabeling are suspected to be substantial and pervasive as seafood is the world's most highly traded food commodity. Here we provide empirical systems-level evidence that enabling conditions exist for seafood mislabeling in the United States (US) to lead to negative impacts on marine populations and support consumption of products from poorly managed fisheries.

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Aquatic foods are a critical source of human nutrition in many developing countries. As a result, declines in wild-caught fish landings threaten nutritionally vulnerable populations. Aquaculture presents an opportunity to meet local demand, but it also places pressure on natural resource inputs and causes a range of environmental impacts.

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Reducing food loss and waste (FLW) is widely recognized as an important lever for lowering the environmental impacts of food systems. The United Nations Sustainable Development Agenda includes a goal to reduce FLW by 50% by 2030. Given differences in resource inputs along the food supply chain (FSC), the environmental benefits of FLW reduction will vary by stage of the FSC.

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