The National Fisheries Authority (NFA) is encouraging local fish farmers to register under the upcoming licensing and registration system.

Speaking at the presentation ceremony for the winner of the IrieFINS Logo Competition, Dr Zara Oliphant, principal director of fisheries compliance, licensing and statistics at the NFA highlighted that, fish farmers are critical for the sustainable development of the sector.

“Our mandate is to sustainably develop and manage the fisheries and aquaculture sector in Jamaica. We have 115 fish farmers currently registered, and this system will be supporting our fish farmers as well, because aquaculture is the solution to our food and nutritional security,” said Oliphant.

“As our marine space continues to decline, we don’t want to overfish, so we need more persons to get into fish farming, so this system will be very important for that as well,” she added.

Being implemented in collaboration with the Transformation Implementation Unit (TIU) the new fisheries licensing and registration system is expected to reduce the processing time for licensing and registration under the new system.

From 1996 up to the second quarter of the last financial year, the NFA had registered more than 28,000 fishers and more than 8,900 vessels. It is estimated that in excess of 40,000 persons are operating in the sector.