In 2023, the Blue Food Partnership (BFP) Ghana Initiative launched, aimed at boosting sustainable aquaculture in Ghana. It is led by the World Economic Forum’s Friends of Ocean Action, with global technical support from FUTUREFISH and the Chamber of Aquaculture Ghana as the local secretariat. The initiative developed a collaborative multi-stakeholder partnership platform to identify priority issues and solutions, co-create the BFP Ghana Action Plan and form Task Forces to deliver solutions against that plan, emphasizing private sector leadership in sustainability and growing Ghana’s aquaculture sector.
With the sector in Ghana setting out on an ambitious future to transform the country into a regional Blue Foods hub, the topic of standards linked to critical issues in the industry has become increasingly relevant. The Chamber of Aquaculture Ghana and the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) have started to explore the development of a local Code of Good Practice (CoGP) that would introduce a set of sustainability requirements for the industry to work towards. These requirements will be informed by the science and consensus building through multi-stakeholder dialogues by the ASC in the development of its Farm Standard, creating a voluntary CoGP that the sector can use to demonstrate responsible environmental and social performance against. With a growing middle class and increasing concerns from consumers around food safety issues related to water quality and fish health, demonstration of compliance against the CoGP can create differentiation in the market place and harness the value of responsibly produced aquaculture products in Ghana.
In this session, Jacob Adzikah, CEO of the Chamber of Aquaculture Ghana, and Roy van Daatselaar, ASC’s Head of Improver Programme, will explore how Ghana’s vision and ambition to transform it’s industry can be channeled by the development of a Ghana led and owned Code of Good Practice, how the private sector can take ownership and course of action by developing and shaping a domestic market that recognizes sustainability and ultimately drives sector transformation.