Small-scale producers, especially in agri-food, fisheries and aquaculture, face significant challenges in achieving and maintaining a decent standard of living. These challenges pose social and environmental risks. ISEAL has been engaging with these stakeholders on the topic of equity and livelihoods in sustainable supply chains.
The Importance of Small-scale Producers and Fishers
Small-scale producers and fishers are major contributors to global food security, and key to local, regional, and global food markets. They create employment opportunities and incomes, and help create dynamic, stable rural communities. They help build resilience to climate change and biodiversity. However, this only happens if they are suitably resourced, highly valued, and empowered.
Why Focus on the Seafood Sector?
By 2050 global demand for aquatic foods, such as fish, seafood and seaweed, is projected to nearly double. Yet, the seafood sector faces immense risk. The FAO estimates 85% of marine fish stocks are either fully exploited or over fished.
Efforts to manage stocks are being undermined by poverty and a lack of power by small-scale fishers. The seafood sector has a long tradition of tackling environmental issues while sidelining small-scale fishers and social issues. While the link between environmental sustainability of fish stocks and sustainable livelihoods of small-scale fishers, fish workers, and fishing communities is increasingly recognised, the pace of change remains slow.
As climate change exacerbates existing challenges, small-scale fishers, without adequate resources or expertise, are increasingly vulnerable to environmental shocks. These shocks ripple across global supply chains and impact food security.
Building on ISEAL’s work on driving systemic change, ISEAL is expanding its livelihood focus to include the seafood sector. This expansion facilitates a greater understanding of livelihoods in the seafood sector, explores income improvement strategies, and draws on lessons from other sectors to support livelihood improvements in the seafood sector.
Learning papers:
- Livelihoods and equity transformation strategies proposed for the seafood sector: White Paper with Aidenvironment. This paper explores how livelihoods and equity transformation strategies can transform the seafood sector. It emphasises the importance of complementary approaches that address systemic challenges and require coordination, collaboration, and targeted interventions to drive transformational change.
- Advancing livelihoods of small-scale producers: learning insights on income improvement strategies for the seafood sector. This paper offers insights and strategies to support stakeholder engagement and discussion to drive transformational change on livelihoods and equity in the seafood sector. It outlines the importance of small-scale producers, their livelihoods and equity issues, and why the seafood sector is being focused on. Using a multi-dimensional approach developed by the Living Income Community of Practice this paper discusses how transformational change on livelihoods and equity can be achieved.
- Advancing livelihoods of small-scale producers: 3 sector examples of income improvement strategies.This paper explores interventions to improve incomes for small-scale producers in three distinct sectors – cocoa, cotton, and seafood. By examining challenges and opportunities across these sectors, the paper offers valuable lessons for stakeholders, enabling more informed decisions when working to enhance livelihoods in the seafood sector.
Further work is ongoing to enhance understanding of producer empowerment approaches (pilots on-going and case studies coming soon) and also to improve the measurement and monitoring capability of sustainability systems of their engagement with small-scale producers. We will be sharing a learning brief on this work in September 2025.
For more information, contact suzanne@isealalliance.org
With support from:
