Jamaica looks to revive aquaculture sector

The Jamaican government, through the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, plans to establish an Aquaculture Fisheries Monitoring Committee, as part of efforts to resuscitate the local aquaculture industry.

 

Chief Technical Director in the ministry, Marc Panton, said that the committee's terms of reference are currently being developed, with a primary mandate to examine the industry's output to strengthen supply to meet demand.

 

Speaking at the closing ceremony for the fisheries extension training course at the Fisheries Division's Marcus Garvey Drive offices in Kingston last week, Panton said that "it's a great time to be in aquaculture."

 

"Even though people say that there is a limited Jamaican palate for freshwater tilapia or pond fish, we know that it is growing, and we know that the market for that fish has tremendous opportunities. There is a renewed thrust towards redeveloping this industry," he said.

 

Aquaculture provides an opportunity for an alternative livelihood for fisher-folks engaged in the competition for sea fish, and their involvement in aquaculture "will ease the pressure on those scarce resources," he added.

 

As part of measures to resuscitate the sector, there is now a complete ban on all imports of tilapia products into Jamaica, so that those who are in aquaculture, both small and large, will be given an opportunity to re-tool, to expand and get back into production of tilapia, according to Panton.

 

He said that while there are challenges to tilapia rearing in terms of costs of energy, feed, and security, the belief that it can be brought back to previous levels is strong among some major stakeholders.

 

The five-week training course was conducted under the Improving Jamaica's Agricultural Productivity Project (IJAPP). It formed part of capacity building activities being implemented under the project's sustainable marine fisheries management component.

 

Just over 30 sector stakeholders across the island, inclusive of instructors and officers participated in the course. They will serve as extension officers to the more than 40,000 fisher-folks islandwide.

 

The IJAPP is a three-year project jointly funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation in Agriculture (IICA), and the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries at a cost of just over CAD5 million (US$4.99 million).