Around 40 percent of the world’s fisheries landings come from small-scale operations, yet many of these fishermen struggle to gain access to international markets and miss out on lucrative export opportunities.
Nonprofit Abalobi works closely with small-scale fishers to alleviate this issue in South Africa, ensuring their operations are well-documented, verifiably legal, and equitably regulated in order to gain market access.
“Abalobi designs and implements inclusive technology that helps remove cost or operational barriers that often exclude small-scale fishers,” Abalobi Director of Growth Chris Kastern told SeafoodSource. “We develop market models to maximize value returned to fishers and their communities and build data systems that make the impact and role of small-scale fishers more visible while making their product more accessible to buyers. Like many fisheries, international export markets represent a significant opportunity to maximize economic return and provide stable incomes to these fishers and their families.”
Kastern further explained that the fishermen Abalobi works with often lack basic governance support, management capabilities to optimize their operations, recognition and leverage in value chains, reliable electricity and power necessary for cold chain management, and the training necessary to economically sustain their businesses. Additionally, fishing communities can struggle to guarantee food security.
However, they do have have a deep and rich knowledge of fishing that is often multi-generational. Drawing on this knowledge, the nonprofit’s platform includes direct input from fishers and communities in the design of its full-stack suite of technologies, including its “Fish with a Story” market access platform, which connects fisher groups and cooperatives with fair local and global markets, as well as financial services.
“We collaborate with small-scale fishing communities – who hold vast local knowledge and customs but face significant social, ecological, and economic challenges – to co-design and implement ‘Technology for Good,’" Kastern said. “This enables small-scale fishers to become data owners, build organizational capacity, engage in transparent and traceable supply chains, recognize the critical role of women, and address food security needs. Ultimately, fishers are poised to reposition in the value chain, rebuild their fisheries, and help develop more ethical food systems as they journey toward social and ecological sustainability.”
According to Kastern, Abalobi’s work does not just benefit the beginning of the supply chain but offers advantages throughout.
For instance, international markets are experiencing growing demand for seafood yet compete over a wild-caught resource that hasn’t grown in landings since the 1990s. Therefore, greater access to small-scale products can help diversify seafood product ranges, provide price-competitive products, or fill in seasonal supply gaps.
As Abalobi and peers in the space continue to deliver small-scale fisheries products that are compatible with international supply chains, they are running into a new set of barriers.
Traceability programs designed for larger-scale, industrial fisheries are often incompatible with small-scale operations and practices and unintentionally create seafood buyer requirements that are either too excessive or misalign with the reality of small-scale fishers.
To address these barriers, Abalobi and others are working with the Global Dialogue on Seafood Traceability to add a small-scale fisheries specific module to its framework, allowing fishers to more easily access markets but also granting seafood buyers access to a new supply of traceable products with a built-in story about driving positive change that fits with the interests of today’s consumer.
Working with 38 fisheries collectives representing over 10,000 fishers and program beneficiaries, 41 percent of whom are women, Abalobi has generated USD 2.3 million (EUR 2 million) in revenue for fishers and delivered 515 metric tons of fully traceable product to market. This has, according to the organization, generated a 75 percent improvement in food security for fisher households.
“Creating value for our fishers means unlocking value in the supply chain; when our fishers buy into data gathering, the supply chain gains transparency,” Kastern said. “When our fishers break free of exclusionary market mechanisms, the market becomes more inclusive of responsible supply. When co-ops adopt responsible business models, the seafood industry gains agency to drive positive change. When fishing communities break from socioeconomic deterioration and the poverty trap, the seafood industry has a positive story to tell that differentiates it from other proteins in the marketplace.”
