BELMOPAN, Belize, CMC—Milton Haughton, the Belize-based Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism (CRFM) executive director, says growth in aquaculture and the blue economy requires targeted and strategic policy actions and investments.
He said these actions include strengthening capacities at the CRFM Secretariat, the National Fisheries Administrations, and the private sector of member states to provide the leadership and expertise needed to steer blue economic growth, including aquaculture development.
In addition, Haughton advocates mobilising resources from multilateral and bilateral donors as well as private sector partners to provide the finances and investments needed to modernize the sector and realize blue economic growth.
Enhancing regional and national policy, legal, and institutional frameworks to incentivize and support the envisioned transformation and addressing biosecurity controls and other technical and marketing challenges will minimize the risk of losses and build a profitable, resilient, and sustainable sector.
He said that the ministers have incorporated these necessary actions into the resolutions passed at the conclusion of their deliberations.
The CRFM, in a statement Tuesday, said that the 14th Special Meeting of the Ministerial Council of the CRFM was held in St. Vincent and the Grenadines earlier this month, concluding “with a firm commitment to improve climates-smart blue economic growth from the marine living resources and tackling the state of fisheries and aquaculture in the Caribbean through expanded production across the 17 CRFM member states, to improve food security and jobs”.
Haughton noted that the Caribbean lags far behind in aquaculture production. However, globally, aquaculture produces most of the seafood, including fish that people eat, adding that aquaculture production today is primarily done in the marine environment, called mariculture, which is the ideal approach for Caribbean countries, most of which have limited land spaces and freshwater availability but large ocean spaces.
The statement said the ministers requested that the CRFM prioritise the development of aquaculture regionally and prepare a modernization strategy with technical support from a cadre of aquaculture experts from across the region, including members of the CRFM Working Group on Aquaculture.
Another significant development discussed during the meeting was the innovative work by the CRFM and the New Zealand Institute for Plant and Food Research Ltd under the New Zealand-funded Sargassum Products for Climate Resilience in the Caribbean Project.
The project allows for the use of Sargassum, a valuable marine resource, to develop a viable and safe biostimulant to enhance plant growth.
“We have worked with our regional partners to design a process that gets rid of virtually all of the heavy metals, and we have produced this biostimulant that tested and performed very well in the greenhouse and initial field trials with farmers. The field trials are wrapping up, but the initial findings indicate that it has contributed very well to plant growth,” Haughton said.
“This is a win-win situation. We are still in the early stages. We have the product now, and we will be doing further development work in Jamaica with a private sector partner, where we will set up a pilot production plant.
“We hope that the pilot commercial type operation will demonstrate a viable and efficient production process that will produce an excellent organic-based fertilizer from… Sargassum that has been a problem and a challenge for us. “
Haughton said that fertilizer requires input from farmers, which is very expensive.
“If we can produce an effective fertilizer/bio-stimulant from Sargassum that can help reduce the high import bill of fertilizer, that would be good for our farmers and help to achieve our goal of reducing the region’s large food import bill,” he added.
The CRF said that the ministers also provided guidance for developing a CARICOM Regional Strategy for Mainstreaming Global Biodiversity Considerations in Fisheries and Aquaculture Policies and Practices, which should be returned to them for review and approval at their next meeting in April 2025.
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