A sea of riches and opportunities

The sea and the economy are directly related. The Earth has 361 million km² of oceans, about 71% of its total surface. Almost half of the world's population (44%) lives and works within 150 km of the coast, moving 1.5 trillion dollars, representing 2.5% of global GDP, according to 2010 data.

This sea-economy relationship is growing rapidly. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the ocean economy will reach the 3 trillion dollar mark in business by 2030.

The so-called Ocean Economy brings together different segments, including logistics and tourism activities, nautical sports, naval industry, ocean resources, maritime services, research, extraction and processing of food and other living and non-living resources of the sea.

In Ceará, the State Government, the Federation of Industries of the State of Ceará (Fiec), and a number of sector-linked entities are working towards the sustainable development of what is considered to be one of Ceará's economic development clusters.

Sustainability, an essential pillar for this segment, follows the United Nations (UN) agenda of preserving the seas, which declared the period from 2021 to 2030 as the Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development.

The state has about 600 km of coastline, two large ports, an already consolidated tourism industry, as well as a vocation for the development of renewable energy, nautical sports tourism and a strong fishing industry that places the state among the first in the Brazilian rankings. The fishing sector ended the year 2021 with a total of 102 million dollars in fish exports, a value 52.75% higher than in 2020, according to data from the Ministry of Industry and Commerce Development/ComexStat. Leading this growth were canned fish, with an increase of 147% between 2020 and 2021. From January to September 2021 the volume of exported fish grew 56.3%.

Founded in 2014, Crusoé Foods is part of the Spanish group Jealsa, and has been leading a success story by investing in the Ceará fishing industry, with its production unit located in São Gonçalo do Amarante, strategically close to the port of Pecém. "Ceará was a big and positive surprise for Crusoé. The tuna fishery that we helped develop on the coast of Ceará means that practically all the tuna raw material processed by Crusoé comes from Ceará. And today this product is of very high quality and very competitive in the market", says Fernando Botelho, controlling director of Crusoé Foods.

Ceará 2050: Riches of the Sea
The Riches of the Sea Program bets on the economic potential of the sea as a source of wealth and comparative differential for Ceará, based on the maintenance, protection, and encouragement of fishing activities and sea aquaculture as a generator of jobs and income.

The program's actions aim to guarantee the practice in a legal, sustainable, and harmonic way with the other productive chains in Ceará that find in the sea the inputs for their development. They were structured, analytically, in five groups according to the strategic guidelines established for the segment.

Among the program's actions, which open countless opportunities for investors, are the construction of modern infrastructure to expand and improve the competitiveness of the production, commercialization, and distribution of fishing products; the requalification of the logistic infrastructure for transport and refrigerated storage for fishing activities; the implementation of real time monitoring of the quality of the water, sediment, and meteorological conditions and the prevention of environmental impacts in the culture of tilápias in net-tanks in the Castanhão dam; the implementation of a program of incentives, training, financing, and infrastructure support to stimulate industrial, semi-industrial, and productive arrangements for the verticalization of fishing and aquaculture production; and the promotion of the productive chain of lobster and tuna fishing, making Ceará a fishing hub that adds value and quality to the products caught.

Water Sports: Leisure and income

Between July and December, constant winds from 30km/h to 70km/h blow strongly in Ceará. Ideal conditions for the practice of kitesurfing, an aquatic sport that, using a board and a kite, uses the wind to cross the water.

The Cumbuco beach, in Caucaia, received more than a thousand kitesurfers in September 2022, in the Kiteparede event. It broke the record for the largest number of athletes sailing at the same time, with 884 kite surfers. The race was monitored by a Guinness World Records 2022 judging commission, and for the official count, the commission considered the athletes who completed the course in the given time in lanes ranging from 2km to 5km.

The projects for the development of water sports in Ceará contemplate the Economy of the sea with high added value and sustainability.

Sport fishing is another sector of the so-called Economy of the Sea that grows with projects for its development. In Ceará there are 1,273 establishments where fishing products are sold. Today the main rivers where fishing tournaments are held are: Coreaú River, Jaguaribe River, Ceará River, Pacoti River, Cocó River and Piranji River.

In this sense, a study is being carried out by the Executive Secretary of Agribusiness for the identification of the potential of sport fishing in Ceará. The main objective of the study is to highlight the benefits that sport fishing tourism can bring in a sustainable way, especially in Ceará, where both the coastal region and the semi-arid hinterland present good prospects for the practice of this sport.

See here, on page 180, all the actions of the Riches of the Sea Plan.

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Radio: Fernando Botelho, Controller Director at Crusoe Foods