Commercially-oriented fisheries, agriculture

Commercially-oriented fisheries, agriculture

05-May-2016
Mr Rachel making his presentationFishermen and farmers met stakeholders in fishing and agriculture – bankers, insurers, hotel managers and buyers of their produce – in the first agribusiness forum to find ways to make them expand, increase their revenue and become commercially oriented in their daily activities.
The first agribusiness forum under the Competitive Local Innovations for Small Scale Agriculture (Clissa) which took place at the International Conference Centre of Seychelles (ICCS) yesterday, also aimed to provide an opportunity to build better business partnerships through networking and trading collaboration between the farmers, fishermen and key stakeholders in the two sectors.
Fisheries and Agriculture Minister Wallace Cosgrow launched the forum.
He reminded everyone present that we are living in a continuously changing world with an increasingly competitive global market from whose challenges we are not spared. He noted that it is for this reason that much more could and should be done to turn fishing and farming into proper businesses.
“Seychelles being classified as a high income country is good enough impetus for us to revisit our practice and investment within our development plan,” he said.
It was in 2013 that the government sought help from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (Ifad) to co-finance its initiatives to revitalise and modernise the agriculture, livestock and fishery sectors. In May the same year a financing agreement in the form of a loan was signed between Ifad and the government to finance a programme called the Competitive Local Innovations for Small Scale Agriculture (Clissa) which officially started in November that year.
Georges Bibi, the Clissa project coordinator, said the forum comes at an opportune time when the two sectors are facing challenges which need urgent responses.

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