International CoP on Nutrient Composition of Aquatic Foods meets to advocate for better data

The Global Action Network Food Composition working group, together with other international experts, formed an international CoP on the Nutrient Composition of Aquatic Foods and hosted a 4-day workshop in Rome from 14-17th January, 2025 entitled “Aquatic Foods Community of Practice Writing Workshop”, funded by the Lancaster Environment Centre. The workshop brought together international experts in nutrition, fisheries, food compositional data, and statistical modeling that specialise in the contribution of aquatic foods to global food security and nutrition. Eighteen experts participated in the workshop, representing a range of academic, scientific and non-government organizations from and working across a diversity of regions, including Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Asia-Pacific. The purpose of the workshop was to (1) review the current global status of the nutrient composition of aquatic foods, and (2) draft three manuscripts to guide researchers and policymakers on how to use existing datasets for food system analysis and monitoring, and generate high quality data to fill existing gaps .
During the workshop, the working group focused on drafting three complementary manuscripts for scientific publication that will guide actions on leveraging aquatic food composition data to address international development goals, including transformation of food systems for both human and planetary health. The workshop had three main work streams outlined below.

Themes:
1) Aquatic foods for international development goals, especially sustainable food system transformations for food security and nutrition.
2) Guiding how to select existing aquatic food composition databases for different analysis.
3) Guiding principles for aquatic food composition data collection, reporting and interpretation.