While the first sponge farms were set-up the appropriate business model needed to be established. The objective is to generate a stable income for sponge farmers and to enable them to gain independence from marinecultures.org as early as possible. Some of the aspects that needed to be addressed:
Sufficient access to sales market(s) for sponge farmers.
Who will assume the responsibility for commercialisation in Zanzibar and/or overseas? Possible solutions:
> Formation of a cooperative.
> Appointment of a salesperson.
> Direct sales through sponge farmers.
> NGO or company purchases complete or partial harvests for overseas sales.
Ensuring continuous training of new sponge farmers.
Ensuring quality control.
Establishing local competency and responsibility for multiplying sponge farms at existing and new sites.
Zanzibar is a popular tourist destination which made it relatively easy to find customers interested in buying locally and sustainably produced souvenirs. The proximity to the sales market allowed us to directly test the customers’ price sensitivity using small quantities of sponges and to adjust the prices accordingly.
The biggest challenge for gaining market access is the limited scalability of the sponge farms. Each sponge farm needs to be able to continuously deliver a certain amount of sponges that meet certain quality standards. This implies that sales representatives pitching the product to customers cannot jump ahead and promise more than what sustainable production is able to deliver.
The development of an appropriate cultivation method was started concurrently with the evaluation of suitable species and in close collaboration with the first sponge farmers. In this phase many technicalities had to be clarified and a simple yet robust cultivation system that can easily be multiplied was developed. Some of the details that needed to be worked-out were:
The minimum water depth at which sponges thrive and at which sponge farmers can spend as much time as possible without being required to swim.
The optimal spacing between sponges.
Sourcing rope material suitable for the construction of the farm and attachment of cuttings that is durable, cheap, easy to handle and locally available.
The ideal cutting size, shape and suspension method.
The minimum number of cuttings per farm necessary for two sponge farmers to make a living and to ensure that propagation does not require collection of additional sponges from the wild.
The frequency at which cuttings need to be cleaned and trimmed.
The right moment to harvest sponges.
Methods to process, clean, preserve and dry sponges as well as appropriate packaging and labelling of the product.
A training curriculum for sponge farmers and the outline of technical assistance needed for future support independent sponge farmers.
Sufficient staff time, funds, patience and active communication were the most important factors that helped us establishing the first sponge farms.
Experiences gained over a two-year period are not guaranteed to be applicable as such in future years as climate, water temperature etc. are subject to change. In that respect aquaculture is like land based agriculture where years of experience, and trial and error are key to shape best practices. The possibility of variability should be kept at the back of one’s mind when setting-up similar projects and needs to feed back in the form of a continuous supervision of the farmers with a focus on quality assurance and advancement of the methods applied.
FPP considers fundamental for the implementation of projects: achieving the basic needs and the improvement of the living conditions of the community, it has the endorsement of it. So it is essential to build bonds of trust with its participants, local authorities and community leaders.
The satisfaction of basic is necessary to improve life conditions of families and communities; which creates accurate conditions to self-sufficiency as well the design of local projects that contribute to their development beyond wellbeing.
Having these situations will generate projects oriented to the generation of income with local resources that will establish the bases to achieve self-sufficiency and their empowerment. Also, from this process the community will carry out actions for the management of high impact projects with and other instances. After having finalized the knowledge and skills for the design, execution and monitoring of local and regional development plans.
Participants with a communitarian vision on long term which permits identify the goals to achieve development.
Commitment from participants with the project, the process and the work.
Trainings and farming models design according with the region to achieve best yields.
Know the ES that each region offers in order to insert it in a value chain which permits better incomes for farmers.
People could receive benefits to reach wellbeing, but they have to participate actively and share the compromise to work inside this scheme.
We have to identify the options to insert the products in the best market, and that market has to have the same values as farmers.
We have to determine with community how far we can go in a period of time with the project, to identify the goals, indicators and impacts of the project.
We have to identify secondary products and identify the diversification of the work for non-farmers families.
We must include young people and children in the process of identify goals for the community.
FPP intervention scheme considers the Community Organization as a fundamental catalyst because through it an active, conscious, inclusive and participative community is created that is committed to solving its problems. FPP focuses on the integration of networks and working groups, linked to the community and participants participation in their locality, in such a way that a dynamic community is achieved that learns to make joint decisions.
We seek to work with self-managed community actors that promote collective interests and raise awareness of the importance of social integration for the resolution of common problems. This allows the appropriation of projects that integrate environmental services conservation and based on social organization.
We are working for the consolidation of the community organization with a solid structure, well-defined roles and full participation of women and young people; which have high levels of trust and solidarity as well as promoters of change.
Of that it is possible a resilient community with the capacity of answer to problems or external shocks that, likewise, remain in the search of continuous improvements.
Identifying cultural knowledge, values and idiosyncrasy of participants to enhance the impact of the project to achieve common goals.
Identifying geographical area, landscape and ecosystem services offered by the region to understand people life and dynamic.
Work team from the region whom speak language and share idiosyncrasy to achieve people confidence and participation.
Participatory planning to identify their own community, their needs according their environment, social perspective and economic opportunities.
Effective communication.
People need feel part of the project and to achieve that we have to integrate as much as possible the entire community, even if they are not farmers, but receive benefits of ecosystem and social services offered by farmlands.
We need to identify the base line considering environmental and social perception of the entire community, even if they are not active farmers.
We need to develop a plan beyond only farming or wellbeing, in which include leadership, entrepreneurship, financial education and business.
We need to include young people in order to reach a generational joint.
Identifying and value local knowledge and generating an exchange of it, as well as the transfer of technology appropriate with environment and community needs, which allow people strengthen its skills and abilities in order to carry out local and regional development projects.
This block is based on the recognition of local capacities, abilities, livelihoods and resources, as well as social and cultural resources specific to the community and its environment. As well as through the identification of strengths and weaknesses, it becomes possible to have the necessary information to identify and prioritize common problems.
We have a central catalyst for FPP betting: generate an exchange of knowledge and technology transfer for the environment and the problems detected, which allows the improvement of local production systems and facilitate the development and implementation of community projects. This catalyst make the bases to design projects of wellbeing, conservation agriculture, among others; that this exchange of knowledge and technologies is carried out and can be replicated and implemented in other community projects.
Local promoters which lead the process of community participation in the project.
Participation of families in participatory planning to identify needs and solutions for them community and commitment to work on it.
Farmers identifying environmental services offered by their lands.
Farmers taking trainings to improves the cultural management of their land, applying knowledge and working seeking to conserve environmental services
Networks with different stakeholders to improve farming and market the products.
We need to prioritize the ecosystem as the main base of development, in which one is inserted the social organization that strengthen the sustainable use of the environmental services that offer the region and that have a profitable economic activity as consequence.
Participants of the projects having the main role in the process, we have to impulse them to participate seeking the way to give them confidence and security to participate, asking and sharing about the topics they want to know.
Farmers have local knowledge as important as trainers and other stakeholders; they could strengthen their skills to identify the best practices for them.
We have to give them the responsibility of their community, developing skills that permit farmers change the paradigm about farming as pick up harvest, to farming as way of life to drive development.
