On Friday, the Sustainable Trade Initiative (IDH), an international organization based in the Netherlands to create economically sustainable supply chains worldwide, announced that it has started working with "Taino Aqua Ferme" (Taino), a tilapia fish aquaculture company based in Haiti, to improve the management of fish health and distribution.

IDH and Taino hope to reduce the food import volume that now stands at 50% in Haiti (against only 19% in the 1980s) with the help of aquaculture, an industry that has existed in Haiti since the 1950s and which exploited up to 4,000 ponds before being reduced for lack of maintenance, a promising industry that has been starting since 2006, according to IDH.

Taino, Haiti's largest aquaculture producer, raises its tilapia in open-net pens in Lake Azuei, a saltwater lake in eastern Haiti, which has the advantage for fish not to be exposed to mud or litter at the bottom of shallow and poorly maintained ponds, said HDI.

IDH recalls that Taino also has its own breeding ponds and could become a hub for small and medium-sized businesses and small-scale producers in Haiti by providing training, fry, high quality feed and processing facilities and distribution.

According to IDH, this collaboration with Taino aims to improve fish health by helping to provide vaccines and improve fish distribution channels to local markets.

"We view aquaculture as the next major pillar in local food production and an emerging new sector that has the potential to significantly contribute to economic development on the national stage. We’re excited to work with IDH towards those ends," Han Wooley, Taino's CEO, said.

Learn more about IDH :

Funded by a number of different governments and foundations, IDH brings together businesses, companies, governments and NGOs, also helping to establish co-financing vehicles. It operates in 12 different industry sectors, including aquaculture, where it's credited for working with the World Wide Fund for Nature to launch the Aquaculture Stewardship Council.

To learn more about IDH : www.idhsustainabletrade.com/about-idh/

HL/ HaitiLibre