Food & Home Entertaining – September 2019

S

eafood with a

story has landed

in South Africa.

Walk into one of

nearly 150 Cape

restaurants that

serve responsibly

caught fish from

Abalobi, and along with the freshest

fish you’ve ever eaten (unless you’re

an angler, of course), you get a

human story, captured in a QR

code and shared by your server.

The code connects the fish on your

plate to the fisher who caught it.

It contains information about its

species, and tells you where and

how it was caught.

Abalobi’s story begins with the

collaboration of traditional fishers with

its founder and managing director,

Dr Serge Raemaekers. The fisheries

scientist-turned-social entrepreneur

grew up in urban Europe; but from

an early age, he was fascinated by

oceans: by the age of 10, he could

recite all dolphins by their Latin

species names. It wasn’t surprising

that he studied fisheries management,

but his life took a turn when, in 2004,

he came to South Africa.

While conducting a stock

assessment of abalone on the Wild

Coast for his PhD, Serge had the

opportunity to engage with local

small-scale fishermen and -women

and, for the first time, realised how

much deep, local ecological

knowledge they had of fish species,

the ocean and climate – knowledge

very often overlooked by fisheries’

regulators. If shared, this data could

make a difference to the oceans,

and to communities of fishing families

mired in poverty, he thought. In fact,

restoring fisheries to healthy stock

levels could be tied directly to the

extensive knowledge of small-scale

traditional fishers.

It was while lecturing at the

University of Cape Town (UCT) that

these thoughts grew into a tangible

initiative: “A mechanism for fishers

and fishery scientists to talk to

one another, figure things out and

develop collaborative rules and

regulations,” Serge explains. That

mechanism became Abalobi, which

means “fishers” in isiXhosa – which,

at its core, is a suite of mobile apps.

The first app, Abalobi Fisher – a

data logbook – is its foundation.

Getting the fishers’ buy-in was

integral to the app’s successful

development and roll-out. For months,

Sergemetfrequentlywithfisherfolkin

thetraditionalfishingcommunities

ofStruisbaaiandLambert’sBay

(Abalobi’stwoprimarypilot

communities).“I’darrivewithflip

chartsscribbledwithquestions:what

kindofdatawouldyouliketorecord?

Howwouldyouwanttorecordit?

Whatwouldyoulikethisbuttonto

looklike?”Previously,their“data”

washandwritteninlogbooks,

sometimesevenonloosepiecesof

paper,andmostlylost.Sergeand

co-foundersAbongileNgqongwaand

NicoWaldeckstartedpuzzlingan

apptogether,initiallyusingDIYplug-

and-playtools.Asthecomplexityof

applyinganalyticstocaptureddata

emerged,Abalobisoughtthe

assistanceofdevelopers.

OnceAbalobiFisherwaslive,

fisherscouldconsistentlydocument

theirfishingtripsbyrecording

conditionsandcatch,aswellastrack

expenses(fuelandlabour)ontheapp.

Thiswasapowerfulmanagementtool,

butitwastheadditionoftheAbalobi

Marketplaceappthatmadethemost

dramaticimpact.Marketplacelinks

fishersdirectlytochefs,allowing

themtoselltheirresponsiblycaught

premiumcatchofthedaywithoutthe

middlemenwhohavehistoricallytaken

Combatting the challenges faced by generations of

South Africa’s small-scale fishers is an enormous

undertaking. Can something as simple as a mobile

app be a start? This is a story of fishers becoming

fisher entrepreneurs, empowered by Abalobi,

an initiative linking smart technology with

community collaboration

BY ILANA SHARLIN STONE PHOTOGRAPHS BY BRUCE TUCK STYLING BY KERRY KILPIN,

NANDA CARDOSO AND KYLE KNIGHT

ABALOBI’SFOUNDER

ANDMANAGING

DIRECTOR,DRSERGE

RAEMAEKERS

FOODANDHOME.CO.ZA SEPTEMBER 2019 23

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