14 SEPTEMBER 2013 • WORLD AQUACULTURE • WWW.WAS.ORG Modernization and mechanization, globalization and environmental disasters are changes that destroy and create jobs and livelihoods, shift working spaces, and bring greater overlaps in women’s and men’s roles in farming, households, factories and the market place. “Gender in aquaculture and fisheries studies, therefore, is increasingly addressing these changes and how women and men are affected by them,” said Dr. Nikita Gopal who led the Program Committee that organized this highly energetic and successful event. This report highlights the aquaculture papers and discussions from the three days of GAF4, 1-3 May 2013, in Yeosu, Korea as part of the 10th Asian Fisheries and Aquaculture Forum. This symposium was the 6th of the women/gender in fisheries/ aquaculture events held by the Asian Fisheries Society (AFS) over the last 15 years1, and it was considered the most successful. The GAF4 full report is available at genderaquafish.org/gaf4-2013-yeosukorea/. GAF4 held a special session in honor of Dr. M.C. Nandeesha, sponsored by the AquaFish-CRSP and dedicated to his life and work. Dr. Nandeesha established the AFS program on gender in aquaculture and fisheries and was also a former Director of WAS. Kumi Soejima (Japan) was awarded the AquaFish-CRSP Best Paper prize for her paper “Changes in the Roles of Women and Elderly Persons within Oyster Aquaculture in Japan.” The AquaFish-CRSP Best Student Paper prize was won by Piyashi Deb Roy (India) for her paper (with R. Jayaraman, M. Krishnan and K. Criddle) “Importance of Mangrove Conservation and Valuation to Women — A Case Study of Pichavaram Mangroves in India.” GAF4 was supported by the Asian Fisheries Society, grants from the AquaFish Cooperative Research Support Program of the USA (AquaFish CRSP), the Norwegian Agency for International Development (NORAD), the Indian Council for Agricultural Gender and Change in Aquaculture: Insights from the Aquaculture Components of the Fourth Global Symposium on Gender in Aquaculture and Fisheries (1-3 May 2013, Yeosu, Korea) Meryl Williams Research, the Network for Aquaculture Centres in AsiaPacific (NACA), the Korean local organizing committee for the 10th Asian Fisheries and Aquaculture Forum and the home agencies of the many presenters and participants. Constant Change: The Gendered Impacts of Aquaculture Sector Change Fish production, processing and trade are all changing, interacting with women’s and men’s lives and their business decisions, often in surprising ways. Norwegian aquaculture, especially salmon farming, is one of the world’s greatest aquaculture success stories. In Norway in 2005, farmed fish production overtook wild-capture fish production, largely due to increased efficiency in Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) production. The impacts of this success on people, including women and families owning small enterprises, have been overlooked. Since 1990, Bodil Maal (Norway) reported that salmon production had increased by 600 percent but this was a nearly jobless growth as it was accompanied by a per employee production increase of 450 percent. Between 1990 and 2012, women’s employment in the Norwegian salmon industry dropped from 20 percent to 9 percent, mainly because of the concentration of farm ownership and the centralization and heavy mechanization of operations that decimated family farms and reduced local community ownership. More than half the current production is done by just six stock-exchange listed companies. In addition to market concentration, climate and environment are other sources of change with gendered outcomes in aquaculture. For example, from their studies in Pata Regency (known as “milkfish town”) in Central Java, Indonesia, Fitri Majid and her colleagues Indah Fitri Purwanti and Indah Susilowati reported that farm productivity is declining already from the impacts of climate change, especially erratic rain, rising sea
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