Using Agent-based models to understand relationship between industrial shrimp trawling and small-scale fishers- implications for food sovereignty and food security

Keywords: fisheries production, bycatch, competition, agent-based models, Madagascar
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

In Madagascar, an estimated 1.5 million people are dependent on fisheries for food and livelihood security. Small-scale fishers (SSF) are key actors in providing food in rural, coastal communities where aquatic resources may make up the majority of all protein consumed. However, in recent decades, SSF of Madagascar have begun to express concern regarding the impacts of industrial shrimp trawlers operating in the same area as the SSF. SSF believe that trawlers reduce the local availability of fishes for consumption as they are often caught as bycatch in shrimp trawling operations. However, it remains empirically difficult to directly link industrial fishing with a reduction in SFF catch much less actual food security outcomes. While models and analyses that may be able to do this are data-intensive, datasets in Madagascar are often fragmented. One possible alternative solution to complex models using observational data are agent-based models that are based on simulations. Agent-based models (ABMs) allow researchers to isolate specific interactions among various actors, or “agents”, and study how these interactions generate some collective result. This study attempts to build a simple ABM simulating industrial shrimp trawlers and SSF based on pre-existing literature from Madagascar. Preliminary results show that as the number of industrial shrimp trawlers increase or the bycatch ratios of shrimp trawlers increase, the catch per unit effort of small-scale fishers decrease. This implies that SSF produce less fish when shrimp trawler activity becomes unsustainable. Such reductions in food production have implications for food security and sovereignty.