Socio-economics

After deciding to become a fish farmer at the age of 13, Soibam Surchandra Singh is now one of the most successful aquaculture operators in Manipur, northeast India.

Reaching 10,000 tonnes of tilapia production within eight years of being founded is no mean feat – especially in a poverty-stricken country with an extremely limited aquaculture ecosystem – but it’s only the tip of the iceberg, according to Joseph Rehmann, CEO…

Angela Odero, CEO and co-founder of Rio Fish Limited, is on a mission to end the sex-for-fish trade in Kenya, (whereby women traders are sexually exploited by predatory fishermen) - through market linkages so that women traders can access an adequate, convenie…

Over the last 11 years Mpanju Elpidius has grown his tilapia farm from scratch, to become one of Tanzania’s largest farmers – producing over a million fingerlings as well as 20 tonnes of market-sized fish every month.

Stacy Ann Gray has spent over 15 years as an aquaculture extension officer at Jamaica’s Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, where her achievements include setting up an oyster farm and the country’s first seaweed farm.

The global recession has hit emerging farmers in developing countries most harshly, according to Prof Greg Lutz, Fish Site columnist and extension specialist at Louisiana State University.

Indonesia needs a sustainable source of funding to conserve and restore its blue carbon ecosystems and combat climate change – and carbon credits may be the solution that helps them flourish.

This year has been particularly notable for the emergence of the seaweed sector, according to Harrison Karisa, senior aquaculture specialist at the World Bank, which has over $9 billion relating to the ocean portfolio.

After an eventful recent past – which included two years stuck in Myanmar due to Covid-19 restrictions and then spending time as a refugee in Vietnam, where his former student, Loc Tran, managed to secure him a temporary visa after the coup in Myanmar – Prof K…

Aquaculture advocate Jennifer Bushman is the co-founder of Fed by Blue and executive producer of Hope in the in Water – a four-part docuseries about the future of blue foods that’s due to be broadcast in early 2024.

Indonesia-based aquaculture specialist Retno Nuraini’s continual work on sustainable production has led her to join Deliberate Capital, an investment company which is providing financial and technical expertise to smallholder shrimp farmers.

Following a challenging seven years, Nigeria’s first commercial-scale black tiger prawn producer is now up, running and ready to supply high end markets with ASC certified shrimp – from Lagos, to Rotterdam and beyond.

Aarti Burman, founder of AB Fish Products, who hails from a remote village in West Bengal, is one of the most successful female fish farmers in the state.

Benjamin Orishaba, a 28-year-old Ugandan, is currently managing three tilapia hatcheries for a government fish farming project in Cote D’Ivoire and also runs his own aquaculture consultancy company.

According to Essam Yassin Mohammed and Michelle Tigchelaar from WorldFish, the COP27 climate talks in Egypt must be ambitious and commit to a roadmap that unlocks the potential of blue industries and those who depend upon them to thrive.

Basel Ahmed is the founder and CEO of Octopus, which claims to be the, “first scientific aquaculture initiative in Egypt and the Arab region that is managed by youth and covers production, disease control and environmental awareness."