Mrs. M. Usha belongs to the Indian Scheduled Irular tribal community. She lives in the remote area of Kulathumedu, a Scheduled Tribal village, Palaverkadu (Pulicat) Post, Ponneri Taluk, Tiruvallur dt.,Tamil Nadu, South India. Reaching her farming site is quiet tedious. Either you need to trek to these remote villages or go in by boat. When the lake becomes dry during the summer season, you need to walk in through slushy waters to reach the ponds. ...

The Margarita Lizárraga Medal Award was established by the FAO Conference in 1997 to honour the memory of Dr Magarita Lizárraga, former Senior Fishery Liaison Officer, for her decisive role in promoting the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries and for her productive work in the field of fisheries for almost forty years, particularly in developing countries. ...

Many agencies and projects find themselves in the same situation as the Bay of Bengal Large Marine Ecosystem project (BOBLME), which realised that it had not taken gender into account in formulating its strategies and project priorities. To overcome this gap, BOBLME undertook an ex post analysis of the gender dimension of their work and what to do to catch up on including gender. ...

Change is often gendered as revealed in a recent FAO post harvest fisheries report. FAO introduced simple but highly effective fish drying racks to local processors in Burundi in a project in 2004 and local people have continued to develop and use the new effective technology. An FAO short report “Simple fish-drying racks improve livelihoods and nutrition in Burundi” tells the story of the technology, its effectiveness (drying time has gone from 3 days to 8 hours), losses from insects and spoilage are down and it needs less labour. ...

This new FAO Technical Paper gives a global overview of beach seine fisheries, studies the operations in several countries in depth and identifies key issues in the responsible use of beach seines and the sustainable livelihoods of beach seine fishers including women and children. It examines women’s roles in 9 country case studies – Benin, Ghana, Togo, The Gambia, India (Andra Pradesh and Orissa), Kenya, Mozambique, Peru and Sri Lanka. ...

Good gender-sensitive research starts with good data. IFPRI has just released a discussion paper to the 2011 FAO “State of Food and Agriculture 2010-2011: Women and Agriculture: Closing the Gender Gap for Development“. The Discussion Paper provides “guidelines on how to collect better gendered data through surveys. It details who should be interviewed; how the interview should be structured; and what kinds of questions should be asked, both at the individual level and also more broadly at the household, community or regional levels.” ...

Two papers published recently (see below) in Marine Policy journal examine in depth gendered roles in the fishing communities of Northern Ireland and northern England, respectively. In the Northern Island case, Easkey Britton and Sarah Coulthard used a three-dimensional framework to measuring social progress (material, relational and cognitive dimensions) and conclude that “fishing society is a gendered one where the burdens of coping can fall disproportionately on women, and much can be learned from women’s active responses to improve wellbeing for themselves and their families.” ...

Many aquaculture and fisheries agencies and research institutes are starting to wonder what they should be doing about getting gender into their work – “mainstreaming” is one of the buzz words we hear. Across the fence in agricultural research organizations, you can find some useful materials to guide your organizations’s emerging gender strategy. Start by taking a look at the new strategy and plan to mainstream gender at the International Livestock Research Institute, one of the CGIAR Centers. ...

A tremendous emphasis in agriculture, fisheries and aquaculture research is given to developing new, more efficient and profitable technologies for farmers and fishers. Governments all around the world support research and extension institutes, and the private sector also has a huge influence. But how are women faring in having a say in what their priorities are and in getting access to the innovations? Most especially in the agriculture sector, a considerable amount of research has gone into evaluating these questions. ...

Assets, control over them and their ownership are a critical component of the well-being of individuals and households. A crucial first step toward understanding the gender dimensions of asset ownership and control is acquiring detailed gender-disaggregated information on assets though monitoring, evaluation, and data collection. ...

New UN Women Executive Director, Ms Michele Bachelet, laid out a new 100 day action plan. Ms. Bachelet also laid out five thematic priorities in the country-specific context: expanding women’s voice, leadership and participation; ending violence against women; ensuring women’s full participation in conflict resolution; enhancing women’s economic empowerment; and gender equality priorities central to national, local and sectoral planning and budgeting. ...

Gendered Seas will explore the different roles and responsibilities of women and men in the exploitation and management of living marine resources over time. As most research in fisheries history has turned a blind eye on women, our working group fills a major gap in the understanding of fisheries systems and their development. ...

Consumers throughout the world have gained familiarity with the seaweed nori (porphyra spp) thanks to the popularity of Asian cuisine, particularly Japanese sushi. Few actually know much about the people who produce this seaweed, however. This article presents qualitative social science research undertaken in Northeastern Japan among a community of nori cultivators on their production process and cultural way of life. Natural scientists acknowledge that in order to manage natural resources, it is actually the resource users who must be managed. ...

Maharashtra State in India is famous for many things, especially as the home of Bollywood movies with its famous female and male stars. Now, two new studies on women fish vendors in Maharashtra shine small but important spotlights on the women fish vendors of its diverse fish markets. They may not be as famous as their sisters, the Bollywood stars, but they are more interesting to fisheries followers! ...

1. The general objectives of the GAFS are those of the Asian Fisheries Society as defined in the Society’s Constitution. 2. The specific objectives for the GAFS are: To promote equitable effective interaction and cooperation among scientists/academics, technicians, fisheries officers and non-governmental organization experts involved in issues related to gender in fisheries and aquaculture with the objective of advancing research and practice in Asia-Pacific and other regions of the world. ...

This open access library contains some important papers and whole books from the fisheries and aquaculture social science field. A welcome addition to open access information. OAPEN (Open Access Publishing in European Networks) is a collaborative initiative to develop and implement a sustainable Open Access publication model for academic books in the Humanities and Social Sciences. The OAPEN Library aims to improve the visibility and usability of high quality academic research by aggregating peer reviewed Open Access publications from across Europe. ...

Marie Christine Monfort, Natalia Briceno-Lagos, Meryl Williams, Jayne Gallagher, Leonie Noble, Editrudith Lukanga, Tamara Espiñeira, Marja Bekendam and Katia Frangoudes A call to the seafood community: time for commitment and change is now! In honor of International Women’s Day 2019, this Opinion also appeared on the following sites: AKTEA, Blog Activ EU, Industrias Pesqueras (Spanish), International Collective in Support of FishWorkers (ICSF), Fisheries Information & Services (FIS), Fiskifrettir (Norwegian), Seafood Source, The Fish Site, Undercurrent News and World Fishing News ...

Secondary data on the role of women and men in seaweed farming in Tamil Nadu and Gujarat states of India have been collected. The following have been reviewed: the existing literature on seaweed farmers (15 research papers), the industries involved in buying the seaweeds from farmers, the NGOs associated with the farmers and also the numerous schemes involving seaweed farmers implemented by the National Fisheries Development Board, Hyderabad, India. ...

A reconnaissance visit to the seaweed farm sites was undertaken in March to understand the dynamics of the farming communities, introduce the project’s goals and action plan to the target groups and assess their books of records. The different stakeholders and their roles in the seaweed value chain at Kibuyuni was explained by the farmer’s chairperson. The stakeholders included local NGOs, the County Government of Kwale, the National Government through Kenya Marine and ...

“Gender equality thinking should not focus just on the numbers of women and men in fish supply chains”, said Gifty Anane-Taabeah (Ghana), the final panelist on Overcoming Gender Equalities in Fish Supply Chains. The panel and two presentation sessions (Markets and Value Chains for Small Aquaculture Enterprises and Looking at Fish Supply Chains with a Gender Lens) were held on the first day of the 2012 conference of the International Institute of Fisheries Economics and Trade (IIFET) in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. Rather, Gifty contended, “the overall aim should be how to empower women and men in ...