SINTESI DEL PROGETTO
ITACA tackles the competitiveness of Adriatic fisheries sector, fostering the introduction of blue innovation and improving the sustainability of catch activities. ITACA focuses on small pelagic (SP) fisheries, meaning the fishing activities targeted on two main ichthyic species: anchovy and sardine that represent a significant share of income for the sector in the Adriatic. Despite the importance of SP fisheries in quantitative terms, the Adriatic SP fisheries SMEs suffers from structural threats that prevent their competitiveness, laying mainly in the scarce capacity of the same enterprises of planning their activities. Indeed, due to the incertitude in the resources availability and in the market request, SP fishermen are led to increase the level of catches, generating, on one hand, possible surplus in SP fish landings, that finally causes a decrease of selling price and a decrease of SMEs income and, on the other, overexploitation of stocks. Therefore there is a need to increase the business capacities of SP fisheries SMEs, by providing the enterprises with tools and mechanisms
