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USAID and Seafood Industry Partners to Hold 1st Responsible Seafood Summit in the Philippines

September 6, 2023 — The following was released by USAID:

Hi there,

USAID and Seafood Industry Partners to Hold 1st Responsible Seafood Summit in the Philippines
[Manila, Philippines] 4 Sept. 2023   – A groundbreaking event will bring together over 170 participants from various sectors to champion responsible seafood sourcing (RSS) and combat illegal unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing in the Philippines. The 1st Responsible Seafood Summit aims to foster greater awareness, recognition, demand, and support for responsible seafood sourcing across the seafood industry value chain in the Philippines.
Organized with the support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Fish Right Program, the     Summit will be held on Sept. 14, at the Novotel Manila Araneta City and kickstart the official celebration of the 60th Fish Conservation Week in the Philippines.
The Summit will feature a technical workshop on Responsible Seafood Sourcing principles and practices, followed by an afternoon session celebrating milestones and industry partnerships under the Better Seafood Philippines (BSP) Program, which was established through the USAID Fish Right Program. BSP is led by the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership (SFP) and aims to enhance supply chain development efforts and industry partnerships on RSS. This program seeks to transform market-based approaches to address IUU fishing through the seafood supply chain.
Attendees will include representatives from USAID Philippines, the Philippine government (DTI, DA-BFAR, and DOST), private sector seafood industry, local government units (LGUs), community-based organizations, USAID implementing partners, and other sectors.
Ryder Rogers, Director of the Environment Office at USAID Philippines, and Dr. Drusila Esther Bayate, Undersecretary for Fisheries at the Department of Agriculture, will deliver remarks during the Summit. Notable private sector participants include JT Solis, CEO and Co-Founder of Farm to Mayani Inc., and Nanette Cadutdut, President of the Bogtong Fish Processors Association.
About USAID Fish Right:
USAID Fish Right is a seven-year, $33 million initiative that promotes resilient and sustainable fisheries management across various regions in the Philippines. The program focuses on areas such as Palawan, Southern Negros, Visayan Sea, and Fisheries Management Areas 5 and 6 in the West Philippine Seascape.
Contact Information:
For media inquiries, please contact:
Charlotte Maiden, SFP
charlotte.maiden@sustainablefish.org
+1 (732)-865-6154

NOAA Joins USAID in Effort to Combat IUU Fishing Overseas

January 13, 2021 — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is joining the U.S. government’s effort to fight illegal fishing in far-flung waters. NOAA has entered into an agreement with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU fishing) across borders and to promote sustainable fisheries abroad.

The two agencies plan to expand on their existing programs, strategies and investments in order to support developing countries’ efforts to strengthen their own enforcement capacity; promote private sector and government innovations to combat IUU fishing; and heighten both the positive incentives for compliance with fisheries rules and the negative consequences for violations.

The agreement builds on progress made under the Maritime Security and Fisheries Enforcement (SAFE) Act of 2019, which requires multiple agencies to form a joint working group on maritime security and counter-IUU fishing measures. Over the past year, NOAA has been working with the U.S. Coast Guard and the Department of State under this framework.

Read the full story at The Maritime Executive

Hackathons seek to create tech solutions for seafood traceability challenges

October 25, 2019 — A pair of hackathons — with EUR 10,000 (USD 11,100) worth of prizes on the line — aim to improve seafood traceability by developing new technological solutions, including by leveraging blockchain.

The hackathons – one held in Cologne, Germany on 21 to 22 October and the other being held in Bali, Indonesia from 26 to 27 October – are being put on by the Global Dialogue on Seafood Traceability (GDST). For the Cologne hackathon, GDST teamed up with fTRACE and GS1 Germany. For the Bali event, GDST is partnering with SecondMuse and USAID Oceans and Fisheries Partnership.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Fish 2.0 Offers Cash, Advice to an Ocean of Seafood Start-Ups

January 25, 2018 — In a large ballroom at Stanford University’s Arrillaga Alumni Center, jittery entrepreneurs make their way onto a small stage to pitch their sustainable seafood ventures. Out of 184 applications, only 40 have made the cut. Among the finalists are a mail-order oyster startup that will ship the food overnight to your door, a manufacturer of devices that track lost fishing gear, an Alaskan processing facility looking to expand, and training programs that teach Peruvian fishermen how to operate more sustainably.

They’re taking part in the third bi-annual Fish 2.0 competition, and the stakes are high. Many of these entrepreneurs have never made a pitch in front of an audience before. And with some of the largest and most respected investors in the sector, including Rabobank, Aqua-Spark, and Obvious Ventures, eagerly looking on, competitors are anxious to make a good impression. Flanked by projectors and armed only with a microphone and a remote to advance their slides, entrepreneurs from as far away as Italy, Peru, and the Solomon Islands have only a few minutes to make their pitch in front of a four-judge panel and a room full of potentially lucrative connections.

With global demand for sustainable seafood growing rapidly, the industry hasn’t been able to keep pace. Programs like Fish 2.0 hope to meet that demand and support the sector’s growth by connecting investors to emerging businesses. Similar to accelerators like Mixing Bowl, Imagine H2O, and the Chobani Incubator, Fish 2.0 aims to strengthen the sustainable seafood movement by helping ventures become financially sustainable, scalable, and profitable.

Although Fish 2.0 is framed as a competition, networking is what really matters for most participants. The eight competition winners each receive $5,000 in prize money, but for past winner Norah Eddy, whose company Salty Girl Seafood sells sustainable fish in ready-to-cook, pre-marinated packages, the experience and exposure were more important than the actual cash. Eddy says the connections she fostered at Fish 2.0 two years ago have remained fruitful for Salty Girl, which has expanded its line of products since they won a prize at the competition.

“We’ve subsequently raised money and our connection to Fish 2.0 has only served us well in business following the competition,” Eddy adds.

A Forum for Changemakers

Fish 2.0 is the brainchild of Monica Jain, a Wharton MBA graduate and former marine biologist, and it brings her two passions together. “There are a lot of great companies starting up and they need capital to grow effectively,” she says. “It’s the same in every field. We can’t expect innovative business to grow without capital.”

Funded by academic institutions, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, USAID, the U.S. State Department, investment funds, and others, the Fish 2.0 process starts a year before the actual event, with businesses applying to the competition online. Each applicant is put through a series of assessments that examine their business plans, potential for impact, risks, and opportunities for investment. While some businesses are well-established and looking to expand, others are looking for their initial seed money.

No matter the size of their business, each of the top 40 entrepreneurs is paired with an impact advisor and an investment advisor who offer feedback on both the science and the business sense of their model. The contestants span the broad and diverse seafood supply chain, with offerings ranging from an oyster co-op in Florida looking for investors to help fund construction of a hatchery, to Seafood IQ, an Icelandic company that uses radio frequency identification (RFID) labels so consumers can be sure they know where their fish is coming from.

Seafood provides a unique challenge because the industry is global, fractured, and full of middlemen. Salmon, for example, may be caught in Alaska, processed in China, and then shipped back to the U.S. for sale. As with other meats, it’s often difficult to tell where seafood is coming from or whether it’s sustainable. And the problem is getting more pronounced as global demand increases. In 2016, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) found that global per capita fish consumption had hit more than 44 pounds a year, an all-time high.

Earlier this year the World Bank reported that, “about 90 percent of marine fisheries monitored by the FAO are fully fished or overfished, up from about 75 percent in 2005.” In addition to increased consumption, the report also points to the fact that “fish stocks are also under pressure from pollution, coastal development, and the impacts of climate change.”

Rather than focusing on improving consumer education or tightening governmental regulations, Fish 2.0 hopes to protect the oceans by showing sustainability makes good business sense. Because the seafood industry relies on natural resources, Jain believes that sustainable ventures, which are able to preserve those resources for years to come, are more “likely to do better in the long run.” Sustainable, she says, is simply “better business.”

Tim Fitzgerald of the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF)—and a judge at this year’s Fish 2.0 contest—agrees that this investment is vital to the long-term health of the oceans. “To have large-scale change, you have to engage business,” he says.

Read the full story at Civil Eats

 

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