Jeff Dorsey’s experience with fisheries goes back to 1985 when an agricultural credit survey in Malaysia was expanded to include fishermen as well as farmers.

For 20 years, Jeff has listened to fishermen and fish traders in ports around the world, to women drying fish on beaches in fishing villages, to owners of fish processing and fish meal plants, to fish farmers from backyard tilapia growers on three continents, and to large shrimp farmers from Honduras and Ecuador. He has learned to understand their problems and to find solutions adapted to unique local conditions. He finds ways to harness the energy and enthusiasm of fishermen, traders and processors, and combine them with financial resources of their own and those obtained from donors and commercial financial institutions. He helps them to develop unexploited resources, to reduce pressure on overexploited resources, to improve efficiency in capture, production and processing, and to move the products of fisheries and aquaculture to the market in ways that increase profit for targeted enterprises or groups of entrepreneurs.

His manual on fisheries credit written for FAO in the late 1980s and translated into French and Spanish, is still helping project managers design and run better credit programs for fishermen. More recently, Jeff has helped to design a number of credit programs for aquaculture, fisheries and fish processing from Latin America, to Africa and Asia. In addition to work with donor-funded projects, Jeff has worked with private clients on risk assessment and external financing for aquaculture projects.

14 September to 2009 to 13 September 2010
analyzing costs and income derived from the joint-production of irrigated rice and fish (tilapia and catfish). Results showed that the addition of fish to rice production doubles income without affecting rice yields.

14 September to 2009 to 13 September 2010
Financial Services Specialist, Mali , setting up a system to guarantee access to finance for farmers, women and their producer organizations, promoting value-chain and bonded warehouse financing, and designing a land payment system to provide beneficiaries of an irrigation project with titles to their land and improved access to medium-term finance.

7 January to the 15 October 2008
Team Leader in Ethiopia for the World Bank-financed “Tana Beles Growth Corridor Endowments, Potentials and Constraints” study for the Ministry of Water Resources analyzing growth based on the development of irrigation, hydropower, aquaculture and fisheries, marketing, finance, and agribusiness.

11 January to 22 March 2006 and June 10 to July 10 2006
Fisheries Economist, Indonesia assessing policies, strategies and subsidies in the marine and fisheries sector, defining investments promoting growth and achieving export potential.

1 to 23 February 2004
Rural Land Tenure/Agriculture Specialist, in Kosovo on an ARD team carrying out a study for USAID of land and property rights and their impact on economic development and finance for enterprises including agricultural crops (potatoes, vegetables, etc), dairy, and trout aquaculture and on improving property rights to increase the use of immoveable property as collateral for bank finance.

18 October 2003 to January 26 2004
Agricultural Economist, on an ARD team preparing an Agricultural Sector Assessment for USAID/Guinea, focusing on the contribution of the sector to poverty reduction. Responsible for preparing in-depth analysis of key agricultural sub sectors and identify their constraints, opportunities and potential interventions over the next five years. Work include in-depth studies of major crops such as cashews, oil palm, rice, irrigated dry season vegetables, marine and continental fisheries and aquaculture, and the marketing of fertilizer and other farm chemicals, and contributing to analysis of the financial sector and its support to agricultural marketing and production.

13 April 2002 to 13 June 2002
Marketing and Rural Enterprise Development Expert, DFID-funded project for Teso and Lango farming systems (Soroti and Lira districts in northern Uganda), analyzing marketing and enterprise development constraints and identifying opportunities for new and existing crop and livestock activities and service sector businesses, with the aim of integrating this market-oriented focus into the research program of the National Agricultural Research Organization (NARO) and into the extension activities of the National Agricultural Advisory Service (NAADS) in its support formation and development of producer organizations, and of creating specialized competitive grant funds for marketing and enterprise development studies to encourage businesses to expand and to take advantage of the opportunities emerging in the regions.