World Food Policy Volume/Issue 2-2/3-1 Fall 2015/Spring 2016 | Page 19

World Food Policy

(Welcomme et al. 2010). Moreover, the
impact of this new technology on the
river’s ecosystem needs to be carefully
explored before encouraging investment.
Policies related to aquaculture should
critically assess the role of aquaculture
in the context of rural livelihood
strategies and poverty alleviation (Bush
2004). Another alternative source of
income may be increased agricultural
production. Evidence from Thailand
(Jutagate et al. 2003), Vietnam (Bui
and Schreinemachers 2011), India
(Duflo and Pande 2005), and China
and Lesotho (Tilt, Braun, and He 2009)
shows that a loss in natural capital due
to dams can be partly compensated by
more intense land use or an increase in
household expenditures. However, these
findings are influenced by compensation
payments that play an important role
to counteract the decrease in per capita
income. The finding that an opening of
the sluicegates of the Pak Mun Dam in
Thailand led to an increase of traditional
fishing activities and income from fishing
(Jutagate et al. 2003) hints at the fact that
the local population remains to prefer
its original source of income over the
adaptation situation.
While promoting economic development
and advancing access to electricity in
rural areas by building hydroelectric
power stations, policymakers need
to take into account the widespread
dependence of households on fish in the
area. These livelihoods have often been
marginalized and neglected by policies
favoring economic development in the
Lower Mekong River basin in the past
(Sneddon and Fox 2012). Trading-off
food security for economic development,
leaving those deprived of their living

to hope for trickle-down effects from
economic development in the future
does not suffice (Friend and Blake
2009; Arthur and Friend 2011). Before
implementing new policies aiming at
transforming the rural economy for
future development, their impact on
fishing-based livings should be carefully
assessed and impact mitigation strategies
for the most vulnerable households
should be discussed. Ideally, economic
development policy should be inclusive
of those who are going to be negatively
affected by its damage.

Further research needs to explore
the role of substitution of fish with
regard to both income and food security.
Specifically, it would be interesting
to know how households adjust their
livelihood activities when income from
fish declines, how much of fish protein
can be substituted for by eating eggs
and meat, and which households can
successfully adapt to the new situation
while others have difficulties in doing so.
An interesting study area for this could
be Thailand where important rivers have
been dammed already in the 1990s. To
overcome a shortcoming of our article,
the fact that food security is only directly
observed for one point in the year while
measures of seasonal food insecurity
have to be assessed retrospectively,
seasonal food security and its relation to
actual fish output in this season should
be observed by repeating data collection
in different times of the year. In addition,
to gain insights into a broader level, data
should be representative for the whole
county or even the Mekong region.

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