Photo credit: FAO
Aquaculture is now larger than traditional “capture fisheries” in size, creating new opportunities to confront hunger and improve availability of food worldwide, while also raising important challenges for countries to grapple with regarding the environmental and societal impacts of this growing sector.
This is why the GEF-8 Food Systems Integrated Program (FSIP), co-led by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), has made sustainable aquaculture a central pillar of its work, alongside efforts to build environmentally viable livestock and crop production systems that meet global food and economic needs while also protecting and renewing natural systems.
In March, the program gathered together experts working on aquaculture from 10 countries across Africa and Asia to share their experiences and launch a new Aquaculture Community of Practice, which will span a diverse range of production systems, from pond-based smallholder aquaculture in West Africa to inland freshwater production in Central Asia to large-scale marine and cage systems.
This workshop, on the sidelines of the first joint FAO–China Fisheries Association International Conference on Sustainable Aquaculture, included an opportunity for participants to observe cage aquaculture operations for the large yellow croaker, whose transition from wild capture to cultured production is a standout example in conservation and food security.
Participants from Angola, Benin, China, Ghana, India, Kazakhstan, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, and Tanzania also visited an integrated processing facility demonstrating cold chain management, digital traceability, and market certification systems, as well as an aqua-seeds laboratory showcasing selective breeding protocols and larval rearing systems.
Exchanging lessons learned from these large-scale operations and finding ways to adapt them to smaller-scale contexts, for instance in participant countries in Africa, is a priority in the program’s knowledge management and learning efforts. There are many key topics underpinning the sustainability of the aquaculture sector, that will be jointly addressed in the new community of practice.
Governance challenges remain a key barrier to a well-regulated aquaculture sector, including weak licensing and environmental regulations, limited institutional capacity, and access to finance. Tools such as the Aquaculture Legal Assessment and Revision Tool, currently being enhanced with FSIP support, can assist countries in systematically reviewing their aquaculture legal frameworks and identifying areas for reform. In the short term, the integrated program is exploring potential support to advance coordinated regulation of aquaculture effluents that could affect the Benguela Current ecosystem.
Countries also have varying capacities to implement spatial planning, and there is varied access to finance and market development, reflecting needs related to investment readiness, value chains, and requirements related to food safety, standards, certification, and traceability.
Through the integrated program, countries are also developing strategies to engage private sector experience and support. For instance, in Nigeria, efforts from the private sector are providing feed supply, training, and technical advice to more than 10,000 farmers. There is also an overall need to increase access to quality seed and feed as priorities across all countries involved in the integrated program. As production systems range from traditional ponds and cages to more advanced technologies, there is a need for scalable and efficient solutions to meet growing demand for sustainable blue foods. Ensuring a reliable supply of high-quality seed and feed reduces pressure on natural fish stocks.
The new aquaculture community of practice will align program country activities with the FAO Guidelines for Sustainable Aquaculture, which were adopted in July 2024. These landmark guidelines organize the sector's sustainability agenda around five pillars: governance, environmental stewardship, aquatic animal health and welfare, social inclusion and economic viability for small-scale producers through an aquatic value chain approach.
The operational network for implementing these guidelines is the Global Sustainable Aquaculture Advancement Partnership – a platform that bridges research, innovation, policy and investments and shares good practices across the sector. During the FSIP workshop, partnership participants and country representatives participated in a solutions marketplace, focusing on key areas such as production practices, feed, seed, governance, and spatial planning to match challenges with available expertise.
This collaborative work in aquaculture reflects what makes the GEF-8 Food Systems Integrated Program different: it connects solutions that work with the institutions that can scale them, and it ties policy change with actual shifts in the value chain and market. This allows the program to ensure that sustainability is built into how aquaculture grows, and how the actors benefit from and participate in it. This key to the GEF’s integrated approach overall – moving beyond isolated interventions to drive lasting transformation at scale, in food systems and other sectors where the drivers of environmental challenges are very often shared.
