Category Archives: Updates

Aquaculture without Frontiers: Helping Develop “Restructured” Fish Products in Mexico

Universidad Tecnológica del Mar de Tamaulipas (UTMarT)

In Mexico Aquaculture without Frontiers (AwF) has developed a Memorandum of Understanding with the new Universidad Tecnológica del Mar de Tamaulipas (UTMarT) based in La Pesca, Soto La Marina in the state of Tamaulipas.

Newly appointed UTMarT Rector, Dr. Antonio Garza de Yta, has created a buzz, which you can feel with both the staff and students and extends to the local industry and community.

With assistance of the State Government, UTMarT is working with the local fishermen and their cooperative organisers in offering specific education opportunities to the children of the fishermen, helping to bridge communication between all parties.

AQUACULTURE AMERICA 2018 — 19-22 February 2018

SESSION:  Aquaculture without Frontiers – Development, Welfare and Poverty Alleviation

We are pleased to advise that AwF Directors, Sally Krueger and Dave Conley, will Co-Chair our Session in  Las Vegas, Nevada in 2018 and whilst we anticipate it will contain lots of our regular presenters we are working on some innovative ideas. We welcome your involvement in sharing your work with us in this crucially important session on Aquaculture through Development, Welfare and Poverty Alleviation.

A large part of the world daily struggles for life – one in eight people in the world, (around 850 million) are currently estimated to be suffering from chronic hunger and regularly not getting sufficient food to conduct an active life.  Almost all of them live in developing countries but even in developed countries there are pockets of people stuck in a poverty circle. In developed countries, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) put the number of undernourished people at 16 million.

Travel Award for Women’s Participation at APA17

WAS-APC is providing the opportunity for female aquaculture people to attend Asia Pacific Aquaculture 2017  in Kuala Lumpur from 24-27 July 2017.  Funding for this opportunity is provided by WAS-APC, and Aquaculture without Frontiers facilitated the process.

AwF thanks all who applied, the dedicated judges and WAS-APC for their contribution and is pleased to congratulate the following successful candidates for the Women in Aquaculture Award:

• Christaline George, Nanyang Technical University (Singapore)
• Indah Susilowati, Diponegoro University (Indonesia)
• Juli-Anne Royes, LLC (USA)

We wish all a very successful Conference. Click here to read the WAS-APC press release.

Live webcast from Melbourne: Aquaculture – getting the facts instead of opinions

Live webcast from Melbourne: Aquaculture – getting the facts instead of opinions

https://webcast.gigtv.com.au/Mediasite/Play/104f10f24a114d3b9642a22778cca12b1d

“What can we all do to support Volunteers?”

We all know how valuable volunteers are.  Their energy, innovative ideas, connections and enthusiasm are priceless; their ability to help us achieve our mission is vital.  How best can we celebrate, value, recognise and reward volunteers for their generous contribution?  Follow this link and see how you can help answer this question.

Celebrating National Volunteers Week (NVW)

Aquaculture without Frontiers (AwF) relies heavily on people who are prepared to devote time and effort to the cause – without this most generous gift we could never have achieved anything like what we have over the years. We salute all volunteers but we are especially keen to support our own people during this special week.

National Volunteers Week is celebrated in North America 23-29 April but is celebrated at other times in other countries e.g. in Australia it is 8th -14th May.

During this period, we reflect on our three-year engagement with Volunteers for Economic Growth Alliance (VEGA) which is an umbrella organization consisting of economic development organizations that integrate highly skilled volunteers into programs mainly funded through the USAID program. VEGA is involved in many and varied projects that involve one or more of the member organizations. We have not reached the lofty goals that we would have hoped in collaborating with all the VEGA members to be their ‘aquaculture’ experts but we will not stop trying.

During NVW we would like you to:

• Join in at least one of our established social media platforms and invite a friend to join
  • Twitter account @AwFVols
  • LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/groups/3950994
  • Facebook – AwF Aquaponics Club – https://www.facebook.com/awfaquaponics/
  • Facebook – AwF Women’s Network https://www.facebook.com/groups/awfwomen/
  • Facebook – AwF Global Indigenous Network https://www.facebook.com/groups/indigenousAwF/
  • Facebook – Ornamental Aquaculture Club https://www.facebook.com/groups/526444844203976/
  • Facebook – AwF Students Network https://www.facebook.com/groups/1149157495123851/
  • Facebook – AwF Latin America https://www.facebook.com/AwF-Latin-America-1798941360318244/?fref=ts
• Post to social media above a relevant photograph (highlighting what volunteering means to you) during the NVW to share
• Send to us a single word or phrase that means ‘volunteer’ to you, e.g. ‘giving’, ‘satisfaction’ or ‘Yeah!’ From all the input, we will create a word cloud to add to the website, giving us a combined sense of everyone’s contribution.

Throughout the week check the stories in our Volunteer section.

San Antonio – Women in Aquaculture

Roy Palmer was invited to speak at the “Women in Aquaculture” Session highlighting how AwF’s Women/Gender Network had now expanded to almost 700 members.

He mentioned that women are generally not included in aquaculture policy agendas and it was necessary for all countries to give some priority to gender in practical and policy programs. Whilst the 2014 voluntary guidelines for securing sustainable small-scale fisheries does incorporate some gender equality activities it should be noted that this does not cover aquaculture. Additionally, present guidelines and certification schemes for responsible aquaculture do not include gender specific terms.

San Antonio Activities

Albert Tacon

A feature for Aquaculture without Frontiers at the American Aquaculture event in San Antonio, Texas 19-22 February 2017 was the presentation by AwF Director, Dr Albert GJ Tacon (Aquatic Farms Limited, Kaneohe, Hawaii). Albert and his co-writer, Dr Marc Metian (International Atomic Energy Agency, Environmental Laboratories, Monaco) dedicated the paper “Food Matters: Fish, Income and Food Supply” to Aquaculture without Frontiers in order to show the importance of fish and fishery products in human nutrition and global food supply.

Albert said: “Hunger and food security remain as one of the most devastating problems facing the world’s poor and continues to dominate the health and socio and economic development of the world’s poorest nations and peoples.”

The AwF Session incorporated a number of discussions, including Dr Antonia Garza de Yta (Mexico and Latin America), Dave Conley (the new relationship with the African Association of Agriculture Economists), Dr Marty Riche (Kenya and other African countries) and Roy Palmer (India and Asia).

AwF celebrates all Women involved in Aquaculture on International Women’s Day

Since we started the Women/Gender Network we have learnt such a lot about the fantastic work that so many women are doing globally in aquaculture – some of whom have been recognised by our Woman of the Month award and have inspired us so much that we wish to share their stories with a wider audience. International Women’s Day on 8 March seems the perfect opportunity, so check out what these amazing Women have done by viewing International Women’s Day 8 March 2017, (or PDF version or visit our website).

African Partnership To Benefit Aquaculture

The African Association of Agricultural Economists (AAAE) will partner with volunteer aid organization Aquaculture without Frontiers (AwF) to improve outcomes in disadvantaged communities by focusing efforts on sustainable aquaculture.

The new agreement links both organizations to closer collaboration and will see AwF working towards including economic profiling in its projects designed to measure the outcomes of its work.

Dr Edward Mabaya, President of AAAE, on signing the agreement said “AAAE has a vast network of agricultural economists working across Africa.   Through this agreement, we will tap into this network to provide applied research support in areas such as impact assessment, value chain analysis, monitoring and evaluation of aquaculture projects.”