What’s next in fisheries tech? You can help decide
What’s next in fisheries tech? You can help decide
By Jes Hathaway
June 11, 2021
Seafood Harvesters of America has been working with fishing industry stakeholders, federal scientists and researchers, and ConservationX lab researchers to better understand the technological needs of the fishing industry.
The goal of this survey is to create a list of technology priorities for the industry that can be shared with the funders and investors interested in fisheries, oceans and technology. Your feedback will be used to inform tech development focused on industry needs.
“This work began as a way to address one of the challenges often faced in technology development: economy of scale. Technology that is designed for the fishing industry for a specific problem, region, and/or issue may be too costly to develop because the user group or scale is too small,” said Leigh Habegger, executive director of the Seafood Harvesters of America.
The organization is seeking responses from all regions and specifically targeting Mid-Atlantic, South Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, Western Pacific and the Caribbean, as those areas have been underrepresented so far.
“We hope that by surveying fishermen around the country, we can start to highlight common challenges within particular regions and/or gear types so technology may be more broadly scaled and prove more cost effective, and encourage smart investment in technology development for our industry,” Habegger said.