C anadian greaT lakes provide WildC aughT, FreshWaTer Fish

Under the Aquaculture Development segment in Canada, the government provides an initiative called the Northern Integrated Commercial Fisheries Initiative (NICFI). The purpose of this initiative is to provide funds and support to Indigenous groups and communities who are not eligible for the Atlantic and Pacific Integrated Commercial Fisheries Initiatives, where Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) manages the fishery, to develop and maximize the potential of their community-based communal commercial fishing enterprises (CFEs). This includes redistributive-model enterprises which may sell products only to the community or local area.

The objective of this program is to create self-sufficient CFEs or indigenous groups, who are completely capable of taking full ownership of fishing operations and developing into prosperous, self-sufficient harvesters. There are four components to the Northern Integrated Commercial Fisheries Initiative program:

1) Capacity Building (Business Development)

2) Indigenous Harvester Training

3) Expansion and Diversification

4) Aquaculture Development.

Funding that is available to help Indigenous communities and groups to develop sustainable aquaculture operations includes costs to expand or upgrade existing aquaculture facilities, for materials required in new and expanded operations, and those associated with entering into an aquaculture business. The goal of this funding is to support capacity-building, revenue and profit generation, employment generation, and self-sustainability of aquaculture operations.

The community’s or CFE’s business development strategy must be in line with every project that is applied for NICFI aquaculture development financing. Additionally, it must promote sustainability and capacity-building in aquaculture and allied fields. The Aquaculture Development component of the NICFI program is proposal driven. It has the flexibility to allow for staged implementation of projects with secured finance under multi-year contribution agreements. Multi-year contracts might last anywhere between one and five years. The NICFI p Program Authority must give its consent in order to approve any decisions on requests for financing flexibility.

Some of the general application requirements include project objectives, eligibility, business cases, financial details, letter of support, etc. The adoption of a project by NICFI does not indicate a commitment to finance any followup work or initiatives submitted for consideration in following years, even if it is acknowledged that very big projects may include numerous phases or steps. When requesting NICFI Aquaculture Development funding, it may be good to define the complete project; nevertheless, only the activities specified in the Letter of Offer will be approved.