The abundance of freshwater bodies in our suburbs, coupled with the fact that they were not being efficiently farmed, ignited something of a spark in me. How did you become interested in aquaculture?Īslam: My passion for aquaculture grew while I was pursuing my master’s degree at Aligarh Muslim University in my home country of India. Growing up in the Philippines Dequina helped his parents sell dried seafood to friends and family – 30 years later he's now a sales manager for Kvaroy Arctic, a family run salmon farm in Norway To celebrate the importance of these unsung heroes – and to highlight the importance of treating all seafood industry workers fairly – The Fish Site talks to two seafood workers who have made good abroad.īorn and raised in India, Aslam Pathiri is a passionate commercial finfish aquaculturist and researcher with 15 years of aquaculture experience in Asia and the Middle East, while Carlo Dequina hails from the Philippines and has been working in the North American seafood industry for over seven years.

However, the great majority of migrant seafood workers live largely normal and productive lives. Their respective experiences can range from the lavish heights of success to nightmarish experiences surprisingly close to medieval forced labour, as has been documented by the International Labour Organization (ILO) on some unscrupulous fishing vessels.

There are few hard figures available for fish farm workers but it is safe to say that immigrants comprise an increasingly large share of the workforce.īecause of their position, overseas migrant workers can more easily face tough conditions, ranging from loneliness and culture shock to language barriers and potentially unfair working conditions. In 2017, New American Economy revealed that an astounding 62.8 percent of all seafood processing workers in the United States were immigrants. The seafood industry of the United States for example, which employs over 200,000 workers and contributes $38.5 billion to its gross domestic product, has a large share of Mexican, Vietnamese and Filipino workers.

The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) estimates that fishing and aquaculture employs over 60 million people globally.

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