A new global partnership to help ensure that the world’s fish supplies can keep pace with booming demand has been given the green light from FAO’s Sub-Committee on Aquaculture.
Over 50 countries have endorsed the Global Aquaculture Advancement Partnership (GAAP) programme, which will bring together governments, UN agencies, non-governmental organisations and the private sector to find sustainable solutions to meeting the need for fish products.
Despite aquaculture being one of the fastest expanding food sectors in the world (with a current growth rate of around 6.1% a year), recent trends predict a gradual decline which might see the sector fall short of bridging the gap between projected supply and demand.
The partnership will be tasked with overcoming obstacles to the expansion of the sector, which include the increasing scarcity of land and water for the development of inland fisheries and the need to step up aquaculture activities in the world’s seas and oceans.
The initiative will now go for approval to the Committee on Fisheries when it meets at FAO headquarters in Rome in June 2014.
A tool to help countries assess whether public and private aquaculture certification schemes are in line with FAO’s global guidelines for certification has also received a nod from the sub-committee. The evaluation framework will also now pass to the Committee on Fisheries for approval in June next year.
