A Next-Gen Seafood Industry: Framing a Career-Development Program for those Earning a Living off the Water

The S.C. Sea Grant Consortium was awarded funding this opportunity from the Food from the Sea initiative, a funding program developed by the National Sea Grant Office to plan for upcoming opportunities associated with the Young Fishermen Development Act passed in December of 2020.

About the Project

The S.C. Sea Grant Consortium, in partnership with North Carolina and Georgia Sea Grant programs, will organize focus groups with commercial fishing and aquaculture industry representatives to solicit input on what is needed to build effective career development initiatives relevant to the region’s commercial fishing and aquaculture industries.

The Sea Grant project team will convene a series of focus groups with industry members in each state to identify further needs for training. We will seek to identify, specifically, training topics that crosscut marine industry sectors such as, but not limited to: 1) seamanship, navigation, electronics, and safety; 2) vessel and engine care, maintenance, and repair; and 3) sustainable fishing and aquaculture practices. The focus group process will endeavor to elicit other training needs as identified by the community.

The team will also will seek feedback relating to more process-oriented aspects of training delivery, concepts such as barriers to participating in workforce training, and opportunities for overlap and synergies across the needs of different types of fishers and harvesters, among others as identified by the project team and stakeholders. The project team will seek participation from a diverse mix of industry members with training needs.