On behalf of Mr. Edouard Saouma, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Mr.K.C. Lucas, Assistant Director-General, Fisheries Department, Chairman of the Consultation, welcomed the representatives of the various agencies attending, all of which have had strong interest in aquaculture for many years, and the invited aquaculture experts (see Appendix 2). A particular welcome and thanks were extended to Mr. James Johnston of the Rockefeller Foundation, which generously supported the Consultation by providing travel and supporting funds for the invited experts.
After reviewing the objectives of the Consultation, Mr. Lucas charged the Consultation to focus on the needs of developing countries in addressing these objectives, and avoid getting bogged down in discussion of the research programmes of individual institutions. In discussing the institutional aspects of aquacultural research, Mr. Lucas cautioned that the objective should be to strengthen national institutions, wherever possible. Coordination and cooperation among research institutions and individual researchers should be considered by the Consultation at regional, and global levels.
Mr. Lucas then called on Dr. H. Ishikura, Director General of the Environmental Toxicology Institute, and representative of TAC, to speak on behalf of TAC and on the background to the Consultation. Mr. Ishikura thanked FAO for arranging the Consultation and the Rockefeller Foundation for making it possible. He noted that TAC had assigned high priority to aquaculture since 1971 when it was first discussed. He reminded the group that TAC would be meeting in Lima, Peru, in July, at which time aquaculture would be a major item of their agenda. He noted that while aquaculture was considered a priority area of research, TAC was not fully convinced that CGIAR should include it in its programme of assistance. TAC wished to know which areas of research would be most profitable in terms of development objectives, and whether existing international institutions working in this area are ready to ensure coordination of this work. Mr. Ishikura ended by expressing the hope that the consultation would be able to prepare creative proposals for the next meeting of TAC.
Mr. Lucas thanked Mr. Ishikura for his direct and clear challenge to the Consultation, noting that the task would be difficult and expressing the hope that recommendations forthcoming would be clear-cut. He then reviewed the working arrangements proposed and explained the agenda (see Appendix 1). The latter was accepted without change.
Mr. Lucas then called on Mr. F. Henderson, the technical secretary of the Consultation, to introduce item number 3 of the agenda. Mr. Henderson reviewed the history of international support of research in aquaculture (Working Paper No.1, see Appendix 3). Mr.Mahler, Executive Secretary of TAC, was then invited to describe TAC's role in convening the consultants. After reviewing the structure of the CGIAR system and its objectives, priorities and criteria for support of agricultural research in its broad sense, he noted that there was hope of increased resources over the next five years and a real possibility that CGIAR might thus be able to finance new initiatives. It was TAC's task to select from many possibilities those initiatives in aquacultural research which most clearly met its established criteria.
He then underlined three issues which in his opinion had been faced by TAC in studying the need for new initiatives for international support to aquacultural research, namely: (a) whether the development of aquacultural production in developing countries was mostly hampered by lack of sufficient research and appropriate technologies or by other development factors (credit, investment, training, etc.); (b) whether within the broad range of priority species, research disciplines and systems which require more research, there are some key topics which lend themselves to the kind of international support to research provided by the CGIAR or, on the contrary, are mostly location specific and therefore are best handled at national level; (c) whether there is a need for a new institutional initiative in international support to aquacultural research or mostly for a harmonization and strengthening of the ongoing programmes of the many existing institutions already involved in this field. TAC therefore welcomed this Consultation and hoped that it would assist the Committee in finding answers to these questions.
