FAO Conducts Seaweed Workshop

Jakarta, Oct 4, (ANTARA) - The Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries (MMAF) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) conducted a cooperation framework of South-to-South through a training session and workshop for the Asia-Pacific fishermen on Friday. MMAF`s Secretary General Sjarief Widjaja said delegates from 150 FAO member countries and several keynote speakers from the seaweed and agriculture industry, domestic and international seaweed associations, universities, and associated ministries were present at the training session and workshop on seaweed culture, handling, and processing. Sjarief said the workshop themed "Women Empowerment and Poverty Alleviation through Seaweed" aims to promote the implementation of maritime and fishery skills and dexterity in the socio-economic sector. "Furthermore, the workshop is instrumental in developing the capacity of human resources, competitiveness, and their mindset to oversee the development of the marine and fishery sector in future," he said. He added that the cooperation is also a follow-up of the Memorandum of Understanding signed by MMAF and the General Director of FAO on May 27, 2013. Sjarief said there are four south-to-south cooperation programmes on aquaculture training, with 17 participants from Bahrain, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Myanmar, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. The first programme, organised in Bali from August 25 to September 8, 2013, was successfully completed. The second programme, participated by 11 countries - Zambia, Namibia, Burkina Faso, Mali, Cambodia, Fiji, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Laos, and Indonesia � is being conducted at Sukamandi Aquaculture Research Centre from September 30 to October 13. The third programme - the Seaweed International Workshop - will be participated by 150 participants and 19 keynote speakers - six local speakers and 13 international speakers from FAO, the Philippines, South Korea, Tanzania, China, Portugal, Italy, France, Australia, and Germany. "The last programme - the Tuna Monitoring Workshop - will be conducted in Bali from October 20 to 22. The participants and speakers are from Vietnam, Myanmar, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia as well as FAO and the United States` National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration," Sjarief explained. According to him, seaweed is a potential Indonesian commodity whose production always increases from year to year. In the last one year, Indonesia was one of the world`s largest seaweed producers. Based on this fact, the seaweed farming and processing industry will certainly be developed in the market, and it will consequently create more jobs and revenue for businesses. "In this workshop, we underline the importance of women`s empowerment in the preparation of seaweed cultivation, processing and marketing to help achieve that goal," he said. Sjarief asserted that to achieve that goal, MMAF has prepared a strategic plan - the Industrialization Programme of Marine and Fisheries. The programme is based on blue economy principles to build four fishery development pillars - pro-poor, pro-job, pro-growth, and pro-environment. The marine and fishery industrialisation is expected to enhance marine and fishery products, followed by the increase of competitiveness, the modernisation between upstream and downstream production, the strengthening of marine and fisheries entrepreneurs, focused on primary commodities as well as the establishment of natural resources distribution with the unified management. "In addition, the blue economy-based industrialisation of marine and fisheries will help maintain the marine and fishery conservation, and it can eventually encourage social transformation as it changes the way people think and behave," he concluded.