Use case
EUMOFA Use Case: Report on the French fisheries sector
EUMOFA Use cases provide concrete examples of some applications of EUMOFA data. They aim to highlight the added value deriving from the use of figures available in EUMOFA for analysing markets dynamic, supporting decision- and policy-making. The current Use Case concerns the use of the EUMOFA data on production, consumption and trade in fish and seafood by FranceAgriMer, the national French Agency for agriculture and fisheries.
FranceAgriMer, the national Agency for agriculture and fisheries, produces regular reports analysing developments in these sectors for the benefit of stakeholders. The Agency’s publications, including Commerce extérieur des produits de la pêche et de l’aquaculture, and The fisheries and aquaculture sector in France (2021), among others, draw on data from the European Market Observatory for Fisheries and Aquaculture Products (EUMOFA).
The 2021 edition of “The fisheries and aquaculture sector in France”, for example, provides data on production, consumption, and trade in fish and seafood among other information. According to the report, French production amounted to 712.000 tonnes or 11% of the EU total and just behind Spain, the UK, and Denmark. Another section of the report reveals that average consumption per capita in France is 33.5 kg per year.
The data underlying these figures have been taken from EUMOFA, a market intelligence service – developed by the European Commission - based on a consolidated database of aggregated and harmonised data on European fisheries and aquaculture. EUMOFA offers data harmonised in 108 main commercial species and 12 commodity groups. The information available in the database can contribute to informed decision making by different types of stakeholders interested in commercial fisheries and aquaculture in Europe, whether a company analyst, academic, NGO, or policy maker. For instance, a market analyst may need to estimate which way prices for specific commodities may turn in a certain month or during a particular season, while a policy maker may be interested in historical records to study the impact of policies on production or catches. Likewise, an academic can track landings of species to research possible interactions between them. But beyond the immediate economic function of the data, they also contribute to understanding the role of fisheries and aquaculture in a wider context, such as in rural development, food safety and security, impact on the environment, or gender-based issues.
To calculate French per capita consumption FranceAgriMer simply used data from EUMOFA to categorise French fish and seafood production into farmed fish, farmed shellfish, and fresh and frozen landings from capture fisheries. EUMOFA provides the numbers as well as a key to convert net weight into live weight, so that data is consistent and comparable. Conversion factors (CF) are used to convert net weight of imports and exports of fishery and aquaculture products into live weight equivalents. They enable the comparison of volumes through the supply chain stages, which in turn is the basis for supply balance sheets. FranceAgriMer’s analysis of the EUMOFA data showed that French consumption of fish and seafood at 33.5 kg/capita in 2017 is well above the EU average and is indeed one of the highest in the EU. Wild caught fish accounts for over 20 kg with tuna and cod leading at 3.9 and 2.8 kg, respectively. Salmon at 2.7 and mussels at 2.4 kg are the other most popularly consumed species in France. The analysis is a specific example of how EUMOFA data can be used. In this case the source of the information was EUMOFA’s annual study The EU Fish Market, which uses the database to analyse the European fisheries and aquaculture sector. The study is available in five languages and can be freely downloaded from the EUMOFA platform. In addition, several video tutorials are available to explain how to use EUMOFA. While extracting data from the EUMOFA website, user have at their disposal specific guidelines.
