Monthly Archives: September 2010

AwF board members meet our Patron in Phuket

It is a tradition that the AwF holds its board meetings during global aquaculture conferences where sufficient AwF Directors are present on other assignments. This enables AwF to maintain its board costs at zero. Earlier this year the board met in San Diego, USA, during the World Aquaculture Society (WAS) meeting World Aquaculture 2010.

On 23 September 2010 the AwF Board met again in Phuket, Thailand, during the Global Conference on Aquaculture 2010 (GCA2010) organised by the Network of Aquaculture Centres in Asia and the Pacific (NACA) and the Food & Agriculture Organisation of the UN (FAO).

Since the opening keynote speaker at GCA 2010 was our Patron, Professor M.S. Swaminathan, FRS, this gave AwF Directors from Australia, Belgium, India, the UK and the USA an excellent opportunity to discuss our activities and future plans with him. Board members also had a similar opportunity to meet with the Co-Chairs of GCA2010, Jiansan Jia (Chief, Aquaculture Service, Fisheries & Aquaculture Department, FAO, Rome) and Sena de Silva (Director General of NACA).

Joe Tomasso resigns from AwF Board of Directors

Joe Tomasso

It is with regret that we announce the recent resignation of Dr. Joe Tomasso from the AwF Board of Directors. We would like to take this opportunity to express our sincere gratitude to Joe for his outstanding service to AwF as a member of the Board since incorporation 2004 and for his development of our Volunteer Database since 2007. We would also like to express our sincere thanks for the substantial and repeat donations to our organization by Joe and his family over the years.

AwF-UA farmer-to-farmer programme trip reports now available

More trip reports have been received and are posted on the Projects page of this website. These include:

• NEW CALEDONIA: AwF-UA Farmer-to-Farmer Programme (Trip Report, June 2010) PDF
• TRINIDAD: AwF-UA Farmer-to-Farmer Programme (Trip Report, August 2010) PDF
• INDONESIA: AwF-UA Farmer-to-Farmer Programme (Trip Report, August 2010) PDF
• MEXICO: AwF-UA Farmer-to-Farmer Programme (Trip Report, September 2010) PDF

Toleo Foundation funded project showing great success

The Toleo Foundation funded project, Aquaculture for nutrition and supplementary income for the rural poor in Sundarban, West Bengal, India, has submitted its progress report for January 2008 to December 2009, to read it click here. 28 farmers were specially trained to produce fish seed for ponds and 72 farmers were trained in pond preparation, fish culture, marketing, and more. All of them are now involved in fish farming. Other success stories demonstrate that the local poor farmers are able to learn and practice scientific fish farming, which means that the project has the potential to provide lessons to other regions of India.

We are deeply appreciative of the support from the Toleo Foundation, whose generous donation has enabled this project to succeed.

Proud fish farmers in Sundarban

AwF project in Bangladesh enters its fourth year

We recently received a progress report from our project in Bangladesh, Poverty Alleviation through Small Scale Aquaculture (PATSSA), that you can read by clicking here, and are extremely pleased to hear that the number of participating farmers has increased by 22 in the fourth year, from 89 farmers in the third year, for a total now of 111 participants. The ponds we have helped to build are sources of income for many marginal families as well as their primary source of nutrition. Support from the project has made the farmers more confident fish culturists and helped forge strong links between fingerling producers, government officials and fish traders. This in turn will strengthen efforts to develop this sustainable approach to fish culture, which is very importnant for continued success.

To all who have supported this work, our sincere thanks!

Farmers selling their harvest of fish