The United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals recognize food security and nutrition as priorities for the global development agenda. Until recently, the contribution of fisheries and aquaculture to global food secu rity and health outcomes has been overlooked. Fish and seafood are a key source of protein and, more importantly, are rich in bioavailable micronutrients, such as zinc, calcium and essential fatty acids that are commonly deficit in plant-based diets. While global consumption of fish and seafood is increasing, consumption varies across and within regions due to geographic, economic and cultural factors . More importantly, w hile it is widely acknowledged that increases in per capita consumption of seafood have been made possible through increased supply of farmed seafood, there are concerns that farmed seafood , which is predominately produced in economically underdeveloped countries, is exported to wealthier nations and may undermine local food security in the poorest regions of the world .
In this paper, we use country-level aquaculture production and apparent seafood consumption data from the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization to examine the effect of aquaculture development on consumption of seafood in economically underdeveloped countries. We find that countries who have participated in the blue revolution are those that needed it the most (i.e., they had lower per capita consumption prior to aquaculture development than countries that do not develop aquaculture). Additionally, the development of aquaculture has, on average, positively affected per capita seafood consumption in developing countries where production has occurred, and the effect has increased over time . Th e analysis is highly informative to understanding the domestic effects of aquaculture production on food security in developing countries.