Eachmile: How an App Could Save the Sustainable Fishing Industry
How can we tell where our fish comes from? Can we trust our supermarkets or our favorite restaurants to buy responsibly on our behalf? And how can they be sure of the source of their fish?
According to an analysis of 44 studies by The Guardian, 40 percent of the seafood we eat is not what is advertised. And with more than a third of global fish stocks currently not within biologically sustainable levels, we all need a little help.
Eachmile Technologies is developing apps which are set to transform the global seafood and agriculture supply chains from fishers and farmers to fork. mFish is a set of mobile applications for fishing and aquaculture that educates fishers and connects them to valuable information like weather, fish handling, sustainability improvement programs, and to one another to share market prices, enabling them to make better decisions based on sustainable practices. And that means that it comes with the option for a clear trail all the way to our plates, if the stakeholders along the supply chain choose to use this service. mFish-Trace is a blockchain-enabled application using Fishcoin tokens specifically designed to incentivize data capture at the first link from the fishers and fish farmers who catch and harvest our seafood. The initiative claims this data helps to ensure that seafood is legal, reported, regulated, safe, authentic, and responsibly produced.
mFish aims to improve the lives of fishermen and their communities with practical solutions via the app. Many of the world’s fishers are small-scale fishers and often don’t have a digital identity nor a bank account, let alone ownership of the resource they and so many of us rely upon. mFish helps to start their digital identity journeys, rewards them for sharing their harvest data leading to improved management, and can pave the way to resource ownership — thus incentivizing sustainable fishing practices. This data thread can connect fishers and farmers to consumers and lead to demand pull effects for more sustainable and responsible industries.
Free and Multilingual Eachmile’s mFarmer app, which uses the same principles as mFish, was also developed for small-scale producers such as smallholder palm-oil farmers within Unilever’s supply chain. Both applications are multi-lingual, operable in 2G environments, and free of data charges via Facebook’s FreeBasics platform. mFish is available in ten languages, responding to the nature and common locations of fisheries.
Eachmile is also working with chefs from some of the world’s top hotels including the Hyatt and Hilton groups of hotels to source high-quality, sustainable seafood. With better fish from healthier seas feeding both fisher income and the diner’s endless appetite for sustainable seafood, it could be the end of the line for overfishing.
Learn more about Eachmile.
