The United Nations held a summit in Rome earlier this month to find solutions to the global food crisis. The focus was on grain shortages and high prices that have recently roiled countries around the world, causing mass protests and political instability in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Improvements in food production on land, particularly in poor countries, are urgently needed. Research and development in agriculture have long been neglected. But there is another looming food crisis — this one at sea, as too many fishing boats chase too few fish. It has not yet attracted much attention from Asian policymakers, but it will in the future, as the shortage of fish intensifies and prices rise.
Asia has the world's largest fishing fleet, with 42 percent of registered tonnage.