Journal of ECOSCIENCE AND PLANT REVOLUTION Vol 2 (1): Pages 17-37 (2021) DOI 10.37357/1068/jepr.2.1.03 ISSN 2435-7294 Corresponding author: MSS Danish Email: mdanish@lab.u-ryukyu.ac.jp This work is licensed under a Creative Commons CC BY-NC 4.0 License. ©2021 by author and REPA - Research and Education Promotion Association Afghanistan aquaculture and fishery sectors - A foresight outlooks Mir Sayed Shah Danish 1 , Abdul Matin Ibrahimi 1 , Mohammad Aman Yaqobi 1 , Shingo Udagawa 1 , Alexey Mikhaylov 2 , Nadeem Faisal 3 and Tomonobu Senjyu 4 1 Strategic Research Project Center, University of the Ryukyus, 1 Senbaru, Nishihara, Okinawa 9030213, Japan 2 Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, Leningradsky Ave, 49, Moscow 125167, Russia 3 Central Institute of Petrochemicals Engineering and Technology, Centre for Skilling and Technical Support, Balasore, Odisha, India 4 Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of the Ryukyus, 1 Senbaru, Nishihara, Okinawa 903-0213, Japan Article Open Access Published ABSTRACT Aquaculture systems and technologies are growing industries in many countries with high environ- mental and socio-economic advantages. Afghanistan, a landlocked country in South Asia with diverse geographic and ecological features, reported the lowest fish consumption rate (just above 2 kg per capita). After conflicts and instability in Afghanistan, aquaculture and fisheries sectors revived slowly, followed by a rapid production and demand increase in the last four years. However, Afghanistan can demonstrate with a long history of fishery and agriculture productions in the past, but the post-conflict and stability efforts are minimal. Therefore, Afghanistan's aquaculture and fisheries sectors are con- ventional and require more effort to study and propose viable solutions aligned with today’s techno- logical and sustainability requirements. Adequate and historically documented information about Af- ghanistan's aquaculture and fisheries activities are pretty limited. This study covers previous aqua- culture initiatives, establishes a thematic review of the current situation based on little available in- formation, and follows by a foresight outlook of the future trends. Besides, it presents the essential factors associated with production-efficient aquaculture and fishery systems in light of economic and production performance indicators. These indicators are briefly discussed that contribute to system planners and practitioners in decision-making and optimizing economic and operational efficiencies. Besides of studying Afghanistan aquaculture and fishery sectors, the basic criteria for successful small scale aquaculture are also presented that can be counted as one of the recent compositions of the sub- ject in terms of scholarly managed information within an exhaustive insight. Keywords − Afghanistan aquaculture − Afghanistan fishery − Afghanistan fish market − Aquaculture indicators − Aquaculture economic indicators − Aquaculture production indicators − Food security − Aquaculture sustainability − Sustainable development goals (SDGs) Received: July 20, 2021; Revised: August 10, 2021; Accepted: August 11, 2021; Published: August, 20, 2021 ©2021 REPA. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction After suffering two world wars, food security and hunger were counted as the main challenges of the nations. Over- coming this challenge, the Food and Agriculture Organiza- tion (FAO) was founds in 1945 as a specialized agency of the United Nations that leads international efforts to de- feat hunger [1]. The FAO declares that "We believe that everyone can play a part in ending hunger." Simultane- ously, irradicating hunger shall comply with sustainability five pillars’ requirements [2] without compromising bio- diversity and ecosystem. Not only enough food, but the va- riety of mix of food with balanced nutrients, preventing grow sickness or death. The world population is growing fast, doubled in the last few decades, whereas almost all resources remain the same. Aquaculture and fishery sectors can be the main con- tributors, mitigating hanger, food insecurity, and malnu- trition in developing nations; combating greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity distress in developed nations to retain the second Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs) goal. Many explanations refer to sustainability [3–5] that the concept of sustainability in aquaculture can be defined use for sufficiently supplying systems, for now, and does not compromise the ability of future generations to meet their needs [6] without environmental impacts on air, wa- ter, and soil quality [7]. The concept of sustainable energy deployment falls under main five categories to be ob- served as follows [8]: 1- Technical sustainability 2- Economic sustainability 3- Institutional sustainability 4- Environmental sustainability 5- Social sustainability So far, studies on aquaculture and fishery sectors of Af- ghanistan are limited due to scarcity of information and available data because of past conflict and insecurity inci- dents in the country. Available information of the recent years is available in the form of scattered information ac- cumulated in reports and government documents in local languages. However, before the conflict incidents in Af- ghanistan, valuable studies explored the fish species of the Middle East, including Afghanistan from since the 1950s [9]. Also, recently conducted studies on the South Asia re- gion (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka) agriculture and fisheries sectors, excluding Afghanistan from the study due to