Global Fish Trade, Prices, and Food Security in an African Coral Reef Fishery

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis study evaluated the potential impact of global fish trade on local food prices by analyzing a 16-year locally collected time series of disaggregated coral reef fish products and prices that differed in their market chain linkages—ranging from local to international markets. We were primarily interested in evaluating how local and global markets interacted with the local prices of beef, fish, and maize. There was no cointegration between the prices of exported octopus and that of maize and beef over this study period. Further, the three types of fish and associated markets responded in different ways to various price changes. For internationally traded octopus, we found a positive association between price and catch rates but no evidence that the global trade in octopus markets created local inflation, particularly the prices of the fish eaten by the poor. In general, there was no evidence for price transmission from export to nonexport fish products even though fishers appeared to focus on octopus when prices were high. Consequently, fishers' behaviors and trade policies that promote adjusting fishing effort to internationally traded fish did not appear to promote poverty or food insecurity in this fishery.