Local aquaculture, environmental programmes reviewed…As part of regional project

Jun 04, 2015 News

The primary stakeholders in fisheries, aquaculture and environment yesterday gathered at the Regency Hotel to give their input on an important assessment project, addressing the issue of improving sanitary and phyto-sanitary measures and environmental monitoring programmes in Guyana.

(From Left) Head of the EU Delegation to Guyana, Ambassador Robert Kopecky, Deputy, Executive Director, Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism Secretariat Dr. Susan Singh -Renton, Consultant Expert from Matis Ltd. Icelandic Food and BioTech R&D, Helga Gunna Laungsdo‘ttir, Chief Fisheries Officer, Ministry of Agriculture Denzil Roberts and another consultant expert from Matis Ltd, Margeir Gissurarso

The activity is part of a larger regional project, “Support to the Caribbean Forum of ACP States in the implementation of commitments undertaken under the economic partnership Agreement: Sanitary and Phyto-sanitary Measure”, commonly referred to as the SPS project.
It is financially supported by the European Union (EU) under the 10th European Development Fund (EDF) project, and is being implemented by the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) in partnership with other major agencies in the region, including the CARICOM Secretariat, the Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism (CRFM) and the National Committee for the Application of Sanitary and Phyto-sanitary Measures in the Dominican Republic. The CRFM, being CARICOM’s sole fisheries body is responsible for the fishery component of the project.
Deputy Executive Director CRFM’s Secretariat Dr. Susan Singh -Renton explained that the 10th Economic Partnership Agreement specifically seeks to strengthen the institutional and technical capacity of CARIFORUM states, in addressing their obligations in complying with the sanitary and phyto-sanitary measures of the EU. She said that in doing this, it is expected that the SPS project is going to help CARIFORUM states achieve overall competitiveness for their products on the international market, whilst at the same time address the need to protect national resources such as plants and animals, and guard human and environmental health.
She noted that, “Whilst the fisheries sub-sector has great economic potential, we have not been realising those benefits, simply because of insufficient capacity to respond to international health and sanitary requirements.”
Dr. Singh-Renton therefore pointed out that the SPS challenge is thus a complex one, as its spans the entire food system network at the country level and also across the region. She explained though that in this complexity, the project has identified three common threads for which interventions will be taken; namely national and regional legislative framework, SPS government systems and capacity building.
She pointed out that the national consultation is linked to the capacity building component and is specifically dealing with environmental monitoring programmes for fisheries and aquaculture for establishing good standards with SPS.
To achieve this, two key experts from Iceland, both with extensive experience in the area of food quality and assurance, are engaging the primary stakeholders in discussion. Dr. Singh-Renton explained that Guyana is the first of eight countries visited, where the two experts will undertake an assessment of the situation on the ground, so as to understand both the strengths and the weaknesses, and after the evaluation, develop a proposal to address the area that requires improvement.
She said that once CRFM receives the assessment and proposals from the expert team, these will be returned to the country for review and feedback, and following this consultation activity, CRFM will have a proposal that it will seek to begin implementing. She explained that the implementation will include development of a training programme and delivery of that training programme, in addition to some strengthening of laboratories.
Meanwhile, Head of the EU Delegation to Guyana, Ambassador Robert Kopecky, noted that the fisheries sector is a fundamental source of livelihood and substance for the region, and is an important contributor to food security, poverty alleviation, employment, foreign exchange earnings, development and stability of rural areas and coastal communities, culture, recreation and tourism.
He noted that in Guyana, the sector contributes to food security with over 30,000 tonnes of river and sea food consumed nationally. It contributes to the economy as over 60,000 tonnes of fish are exported yearly. It aids employment, with over 5000 employed directly in the industry. He noted that fisheries and aquaculture make up over 6 percent of Guyana’s GDP.
He said that the SPS project enables the EU to share best practices and to give support to answering the many calls for a common fisheries policy standard in the region.
“The fish potential, given the topography of your country, is naturally here, and I deeply believe that sustainable good fishery for the future is the way to go for Guyana, in terms of employment, GDP contribution,” he counselled.
Meanwhile, Chief Fisheries Officer, Ministry of Agriculture, Denzil Roberts, noted that the sanitary aspect of the industry is extremely important, especially to Guyana that is seeking to penetrate more global markets. “With the globalised world, the increasingly high demand for sanitary standards by the importing country, we the export countries have to follow and meet those standards, because if we do not, our access to markets will be very restricted, because it is a very competitive market,” he said, reiterating the importance of the consultation.