The Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Fish, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), aims to reduce poverty and improve nutrition, food security, and livelihoods in partner countries by supporting research on sustainable aquatic food systems. The Fish Innovation Lab is managed by the Mississippi State University Global Center for Aquatic Health and Food Security. It is one of 21 Feed the Future Innovation Lab s which are leveraging the expertise of U.S. universities and developing country research institutions to tackle some of the world’s greatest challenges in agriculture and food security.
From 2018-2023, the Fish Innovation Lab supported 24 activities focused on applied research, 15 of which were in African countries: Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, and Zambia . The lab also had activities in Bangladesh and Cambodia, as well as one activity that focused on Peru, the Philippines, Madagascar, and the Pacific Islands region. In this last phase of funding, which concluded in September 2023, the lab’s program areas included improving productivity, mitigating risk, and improving human outcomes. Additionally, the Fish Innovation Lab ha d four cross-cutting themes, which were incorporated into each funded activity and guided the lab’s work overall: mainstreaming gender equity and youth inclusion, advancing human and institutional capacity development, strengthening resilience, and advancing nutrition.
The Fish Innovation Lab’s activities in Africa included aquaculture and fisheries. All of the Nigerian activities investigated different ways to improve aquaculture production and provide better quality fish products to consumers. The Kenya and Ghana activities worked to improve the sustainability of local fisheries and provide nutrition training and information to promote consumption of aquatic foods for better nutrition amongst fishers, mothers, and children. Activities in Zambia captured a wide range of work, from fish vaccine development to reduce aquaculture losses to assessing population ecology and current distribution of introduced invasive crayfish in the Kafue Floodplain and Lake Kariba. Additionally, two Zambia activities aimed to increase nutrition and food security for families by collecting information from participants to determine leverage points to impact postharvest loss, food security, gender equity, entrepreneurialism, and economic empowerment among fishers, processors, and traders at Lake Kariba. One of these activities developed a fish powder along with recipes for enhanced nutrition, particularly benefiting mothers and infants in vulnerable households.
The Mississippi State University Global Center for Aquatic Health and Food Security was recently awarded a five-year extension to continue management of the Fish Innovation Lab to address global food security challenges through aquatic food systems. For information on funding opportunities and to learn more about the activities of the Fish Innovation Lab, visit our website at https://rb.gy/j17i6.