Abstract
Subsistence inland fisheries are underreported in developing countries like Pakistan. This study attempted to find out fish consumption determinants of traditional subsistence fishers in Charsadda district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Province of Pakistan. Data were collected between March and December 2019 through 36 predetermined questions applied to 286 randomly selected households. The data were analyzed through multiple linear regression model. Study found that average fish consumption of the sample households was 3.3 kg per capita per annum, which is higher than Pakistan’s national average of 1.9 kg per capita per annum. The most viable reasons of fish consumption among the sample households were that most of them were; subsistence fishers, lived closed to water bodies and had easy access to fishing grounds. Majority of them consumed fish once a month in summer season but consumption increased in winter season. The regression results indicated that fish price, proximity to rivers, and family size have negative, whereas number of fishing equipment’s, education and family income have positive effect on fish consumption. Actions are needed to improve fish production in local rivers through hatcheries development and aquaculture encouragement, so that fish meat become affordable to other areas located far away from water bodies.
Highlights
Inland subsistence fisheries are vital as food and nutritional security in developing countries
This study attempted to find out fish consumption determinants of traditional subsistence fishers in Charsadda district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Province of Pakistan
This gave the value of 3.3 kg per head per annum, which is greater than 1.9 kg per capita, the national average for Pakistan
Summary
Inland subsistence fisheries are vital as food and nutritional security in developing countries. Besides being vital to human nourishment, the per head fish intake in Pakistan is 1.9 kg (Baldwin and Hamstead, 2014) in contrast to the global average of 20.1 kg per capita (Belton et al, 2018). Per head fish intake in the rest of the two provinces i.e. Sindh and Baluchistan further declined to 2.98 and 5.28 kg in 2002-2003, respectively (Wasim, 2007). Besides these variations in data regarding fish consumption, catch from inland fisheries is believed to be greatly underreported especially in the case of Pakistan. The remarkable differences in fish consumption in different regions making the job of protein provision to low income people in developing countries more challenging
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