Earth Ocean Food Systems (“ETHOS”), founded in 2023, is a non-profit organization committed to advancing ecologically sustainable marine and freshwater food systems. With a focus on Small Island Developing States (SIDS), ETHOS conducts R&D and education to connect innovative aquaculture initiatives with funding for their food sovereignty, food justice and community engagement programming.
ETHOS’s “Hands Across the Water” is a cohort-based program that engages funding, science, and practitioner communities in interactive exploration of values-based, transdisciplinary work in aquatic food systems. ETHOS leads unique, bi-annual field-based excursions to partner sites to showcase community-based and food sovereignty-focused solutions that integrate sustainable seafood production, increase local economic activity, and are ripe for expansion or replication. As ETHOS cohorts are established, the growing global-to-local network of industry investors, researchers, and producers collectively contribute to more just, sustainable food systems. This results in immediate, local-level impacts as well as learning-communities that continually explore globally valuable regenerative food production.
ETHOS is committed to furthering research and development of values-based aquatic food systems initiatives and to amplifying stories of aquaculture development worldwide that exemplify sustainable and effective food production, ecological and economic sustainability, and social justice. The ETHOS approach introduces new models of engagement by connecting external resources with local needs through a people-to-people approach.