Socioeconomics and Enterprise Development in South African Aquaculture

Dr. Bernadette Brown-Webb is the CEO of the Saldanha Aquaculture Development Centre, a not-for-profit company on South Africa's west coast providing integrated development support to historically disadvantaged entrepreneurs in the aquaculture sector. She spent 20 years at the CSIR in enterprise development before completing a PhD on self-sustainable enterprise creation in the aquaculture sector, using the Saldanha mussel industry as her case study.The episode covers how to define socioeconomics in aquaculture, the work of the Saldanha Aquaculture Development Centre, a Gracilaria cultivation trial running at African Olive Trading's mussel farm in partnership with DFFE and UCT, and African Olive Trading as a case study in long-term aquaculture success (400+ jobs, grown from 5 to 30 hectares over two decades). She also walks through the key factors that determine whether an aquaculture enterprise succeeds or fails, the practical challenges of market assessment, and why integrated development support rather than funding alone is what the sector needs to become genuinely inclusive.Made possible by LIMAQUA.