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A tale of fish in two cities: consumption patterns of low-income households in South India

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Abstract

While much is known about fish production patterns and consumption at an aggregate level, there is little understanding of consumption behavior among low-income households in city regions. Given that fish is an important and possibly cheap source of nutrition for millions of poor people, this paper attempts to understand patterns of fish consumption among low-income households in two urban sites in South India, namely Chennai (coastal city) and Bangalore (inland city). By analyzing survey data collected in three different seasons from the same (around 250) households, we are able to infer diverse patterns of fish consumption by low-income households, including purchasing behavior, quality inferences, and trust relations with traders. Our analysis shows that Chennai’s fish consumers rely more on informal markets and possess stronger preferences for certain species of fish while those in Bangalore make more use of formal market structures, displaying indifference toward the type of fish consumed. Our analysis helps to understand low-income consumer behavior while promoting fish for food and nutrition security among these populations in city regions.

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Notes

  1. http://www.fao.org/state-of-fisheries-aquaculture/en/, accessed on 4th April 2020.

  2. https://globalnutritionreport.org/reports/global-nutrition-report-2018/, accessed on 4th April 2020.

  3. http://dahd.nic.in/sites/default/filess/Section%20J%20%20%2012_0_0.pdf

  4. For details see https://www.fisheries.tn.gov.in/History

  5. https://madrascourier.com/opinion/the-fish-traders-of-madras/

  6. https://archive.org/stream/modernmysore035292mbp#page/n15/mode/2up

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Acknowledgements

This research is part of the ongoing project on “Fish for food security in city regions of India and Ghana: An Inter-regional Innovation Project (fish4food)” funded by NWO (Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research)-WOTRO. We acknowledge their funding support to conduct this research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Development, Azim Premji University, Bangalore, India

    Amalendu Jyotishi

  2. Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands

    Joeri Scholtens & Maarten Bavinck

  3. Amrita School of Business, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Coimbatore, India

    Gopakumar Viswanathan

  4. Department of Management, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Bangalore Campus, Bangalore, India

    Priya Gupta

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  1. Amalendu Jyotishi
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  2. Joeri Scholtens
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  3. Gopakumar Viswanathan
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  4. Priya Gupta
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  5. Maarten Bavinck
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Correspondence to Amalendu Jyotishi.

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Jyotishi, A., Scholtens, J., Viswanathan, G. et al. A tale of fish in two cities: consumption patterns of low-income households in South India. J. Soc. Econ. Dev. 23, 240–257 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40847-020-00141-x

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