The people behind FISH4ACP’s value chains

First online event of EU-funded programme promoting sustainable fisheries and aquaculture in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific

6 November 2020 - Nearly 400 people who joined the first online event of the newly started FISH4ACP programme went on a virtual tour meeting the people behind the value chains that FISH4ACP aims to reinforce in the Dominican Republic, Guyana and Nigeria.

The event was held on held on 16 July 2020 during a week packed with “virtual dialogues” on fisheries and aquaculture meant to keep the momentum towards FAO’s 34th Committee on Fisheries, which was postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic and is now expected to take place in early 2021.

“We want to start a conversation with all the people interested in this project, but also with the people behind the value chains we will be working with,” said Gilles van de Walle, FISH4ACP’s manager.

Lively interviews and discussions highlighted FISH4ACP’s unique features, such as the comprehensive value chain approach and its focus on all three aspects of sustainability – on people, the planet and on profit.

But most of all, this event was a tour of FISH4ACP, offering broad perspectives on its ambition to strengthen fisheries and aquaculture in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific and inside views of the value chains it is going to support.

From Nigeria, the world’s largest producer of African catfish, Yahya Olunbumi explained that when she started her business, people kept asking if she was sure a woman can do fish farming. Now, she runs her own catfish farm and processing plant.

Guyana is the world’s largest producer of Atlantic seabob, a commercially important shrimp captured from the Atlantic coast of the US all the way down to Brazil. But, as Subrina Haricharan, a senior quality manager in one of Guyana's largest shrimp producers explained, climate change and sargassum weeds are affecting the catches.

José Tejada Dumé, an artisanal fisherman from the Dominican Republic, said the main challenge to increase revenues from mahi-mahi fishing is to match fluctuating catches with market demand. "When we have a good catch, we aren't able to sell it all," he said.

FISH4ACP kicked-off in 2020 assessing the ten targeted value chains and develop plans on how to improve them, which is what the rest of the five-year programme will be all about: help the value chains to explore new markets, improve working conditions and manage fish stocks at sustainable levels.

Due to the success of this first virtual tour, FISH4ACP will aim to continue the conversation by organising two of these events per year.

You can view the webcast of the event here. Stay tuned for our next broadcast!