Enhance the viability of small-scale fisheries (SSF) in Asia and Africa.

25 February 2022. The Vulnerability to Viability Global Partnership (V2V) is a transdisciplinary global partnership and knowledge network aimed at the co-creation of knowledge and the development of a community-based capacity to reduce vulnerability and enhance the viability of small-scale fisheries (SSF) in Asia and Africa.

In this presentation hosted by V2V and led by WorldFish’s Director of Science and Research, Edward Allison will discuss how current research and policies are sufficiently well developed to support viable pathways to enable small-scale fisheries and fisherfolk to thrive. However, there has been a systematic under-investment in implementing the proposed reforms, which will lead to systemic failings at the research-policy-practice, further exacerbating vulnerability and hindering the path to viability.

Systemic failings at the research-policy-practice

1. shortcomings in the data and information required by decision-makers and investors, 
2. lack of effective partnerships with other food-system and ‘blue economy’ actors outside the fisheries sector, 
3. continuing exclusion of small-scale aquatic food system actors from large-scale water resource and coastal zone management planning, 
4. failure to recognize common-cause with sustainable aquaculture that complements (rather than displaces) fisheries and; 
5. exclusion of the aquatic food systems from national systems of innovation in agriculture and food. 

In all these areas, a failure to address social and power differentials within the sector – gender, class, ethnicity and landlessness – exacerbates vulnerability and hinders the path to viability.

This argument is the basis for the CGIAR’s new USD 35 million 3 year- research initiative on ‘Resilient Aquatic Food Systems for Healthy People and Planet’ (RAqFS)– which seeks to galvanize policy action and investment to address key systemic failings identified. During the presentation, Allison will highlight the RAqFS initiative’s proposed program of work and invites collaboration and welcomes participants’ insights and discussion.

Speaker:
Edward H. Allison is an interdisciplinary scholar with over 30 years of academic and policy experience, who works closely with researchers across social and natural sciences and the humanities, as well as a steward of natural resources in communities, civil society organizations, development actors, governments and the private sector. Allison’s influential livelihoods and food systems work spans the globe thanks to his research, teaching, and policy experience in fisheries and aquaculture with links to sustainable development in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, Oceania, Latin America, North America, and Europe. In 2020, he was listed by Clarivate/Web of Science in the top 0.1 percent most cited of the world's researchers in the cross-disciplinary category.

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Related:

The aquaculture industry has responded to the volatility of fishmeal by substituting soybean meal, but has found that a diet based on plant proteins can lead to gut inflammation, disease, and other adverse side effects in numerous commercially important species. It’s clear the industry needs new sources of dietary proteins like the SCP independent of pelagic fish or terrestrial plants that are better purposed to feeding humans. In addition to reducing pressure on declining wild fish stocks and creating healthier fish, a SCP Meal is sustainable. A 100-acre KBM fermentation facility can produce more high quality protein than a 10,000-acre soy farm, dramatically reducing the environmental impact, eliminating the need for fertilisers and pesticides, and reducing energy use.  

Source: Single cell protein: Promising new protein for fish