Fish trade to improve global food security

Business

THE seafood business has the potential to improve global food security, ocean sustainability, and the lives of locals, a forum has been told.
Founder of the Fish 2.0 project Monica Jain told the Pacific tuna forum in Port Moresby that to transform the seafood industry, these businesses, however, needed capital investments to grow and take advantage of new markets.
She said the three important keys to moving financing forward in the sustainable seafood field was to have investment-ready ventures, investment-ready investor and resources and support systems for both.
“If we do not have good ventures, there is nothing to lure good investors to go into the Pacific Islands countries to invest.”
The Fish 2.0 Project, an international organisation founded by Jain in 2013, was established in a number of countries in the Pacific to inform investors, grow businesses, identify investment opportunities, align business values and impact and prepare people interested in doing seafood business to approach investors and connect entrepreneurs, investors and sector experts.
She said her project found out that there were many investors who did not know much about the seafood world.
“We noticed that investors in the field were having a hard time finding fisheries deals and fisheries businessowners were frustrated that investors had no interest.”
Jain said they built knowledge and connections needed to increase investment in the sustainable seafood sector.
“Our goal is to create the business growth needed to drive social and environmental change in the supply chain.”